“But she is my sister,” urged Mildred, looking full into her mother’s eyes, with tremendous resolution in her own. “I love her like a sister, and she is my sister. Bell says so.”
“Bell is an impertinent person,” cried Mrs. Fausset angrily. “When did she say so?”
“Last night, when she thought I was asleep. Mayn’t I call Fay sister?” persisted Mildred coaxingly.
“On no account. I never heard anything so shameful. To think that Bell should gossip! An old servant like Bell—my own old nurse. It is too cruel!” cried Mrs. Fausset, forgetting herself in her anger.
Fay stood tall and straight in the sunshine outside the tent, wondering at the storm. She had an instinctive apprehension that Mrs. Fausset’s anger was humiliating to her. She knew not why, but she felt a sense of despair darker than any other evil moment in her life; and yet her evil moments had been many.
“You need not be afraid that I shall ask Mildred to call me sister,” she said. “I love her dearly, but I hate everybody else in this house.”
“You are a wicked, ungrateful girl,” exclaimed Mrs. Fausset, “and I am very sorry I ever saw your face.”
Fay drew herself up, looked at the speaker indignantly for a moment or so, and then walked quietly away towards the house.
She passed the footman with the tea-tray as she crossed the lawn, and a little further on she passed John Fausset, who looked at her wonderingly.
Mildred burst out crying.