"I can't help it, Sue; I really can't. Oh, dear—oh, dear!"
Permitted to see the rector? Had she not been almost daily seeing—and dodging—the worthy Custance for weeks past? It had seemed to her that she could not set foot outside the Abbey domain without catching a glimpse of his long, thin figure somewhere or other on the road outside,—and she had actually taken to spying out the land through a chink of the park palings in order to let the figure, if there, vanish, before venturing forth. Again she quavered apologetically, "Oh, dear—oh, dear!"
But naturally no one joined in the mirth; Maud looked contemptuous, Sybil indifferent—while a more than ordinary indignation suffused the whole countenance of their half-sister. "Really, Leo!" Sue drew herself up to her full height, and could enunciate no more.
"I mean no harm," protested Leo, stoutly. "You needn't look at me like that, all of you,"—for now she too was vexed and bit her lip. "Why mayn't I laugh when a thing is funny? And it is funny, Sue's saying that."
"Indeed? We don't happen to see it so." Maud was seldom in sympathy with jesting, and it must be owned that to a person with no sense of humour Leo's childishness was at times incomprehensible. Leo, however, had learned not to heed this.
"Well, I'll tell you," cried she, recovering. "Then you'll understand. Poor dear Euty, with his long back and hanging head—what? Oh, Sue, he has. He has the very longest back and thinnest neck—and his head regularly wiggle-waggles over his shoulder,—it will drop off some fine day,—well, I won't then, I'll to the point, as the books say. If Sue will only look a little, little bit relenting?"
"You are wounding Sue in her tenderest point," said Sybil, at length aroused to take part in the conversation. "Don't you know that, by now? Sue is a pillar of the church——"
"It is absurd to make game of Mr. Custance, at any rate," interposed Maud authoritatively. "He is a very good parish clergyman, and much more of a gentleman than any of those you were accustomed to at Deeside," and she threw an immeasurable contempt into her tone. "I never saw one with either decent manners or appearance at your table."
"That's a nasty one," muttered Sybil. Then aloud: "Now we've all had our whack at each other, and Leo has next innings; what is it you want to say, Leo? Never mind Maud; you tell Sue and me your little joke, and let us pronounce upon it."
"No, I think we have had enough;" Sue rose from her seat in offended dignity. "Leo has got to learn that a friend's name should not be bandied about, a mark for insults——"