“If you please, Miss Gertrude, Mrs Seaton wishes to see you at once. Perhaps you will be so obliging as to go up-stairs with her. Master Clement has kept me so long that I fear I shall not have the things ready to send with Peter.”
Miss Gertrude rose, but with not the best grace in the world, and Christie followed her into the house and up-stairs. At the first landing a door opened, and a little boy, half-dressed, rushed out.
“Tudie, let me go with you; I want to go.”
“Naughty boys who won’t let Mattie dress them mustn’t expect to be taken anywhere. You are not to come with me. You will wake Claude.”
“Oh, Claude’s awake, and crying to be dressed. Let me go with you,” pleaded the child.
“No; you are not to come. Remember, I tell you so; and I am not Mattie, to be trifled with.”
Miss Gertrude spoke very gravely. Her brother, a spirited little lad of five or six years of age, looked up into her face with defiance in his eyes. Then he gave a glance down the long hall, as if meditating a rush in that direction; but he thought better of it.
“I’ll be good, Tudie. I won’t make a noise,” said he.
“Stay where you are,” said Miss Gertrude, decidedly. She led the way down the long hall, then up a flight of steps, and opened the door of a large room. It seemed quite dark at first, but soon Christie was able to distinguish the different things in it. The furniture of the room was covered with green stuff, and there was on the floor a soft green carpet, with bright flowers scattered over it. The curtains on the windows and on the bed were of white muslin, but the hangings above were green. The paper on the walls was white, with a border of brown acorns and green oak-leaves. It was a very pretty room; and the coolness and the softened light made it seem altogether delightful to Christie after her long, dusty walk.
On the bed was a lady, dressed for an outdoor walk, but her hands were pressed over her eyes as though she were in pain. A little boy lay tossing fretfully on the sofa, but his peevish cry ceased for a moment as they entered the room. Miss Gertrude seated herself beside him, and said, without approaching the bed—