“What do you think, Effie?” continued her aunt.
“Oh, it’s of no use to think about it at all! There’s no need of Christie’s going. She is not strong enough. She is but a child.”
Effie spoke hastily, as though she wished the subject dropped. But Aunt Elsie did not seem inclined to drop it.
“Well, it’s but a little girl that is wanted,” she said. “And as for her not being strong enough, I am sure there canna be any great strength required to amuse two or three bairns. I dare say it might be the very place for her.”
“Yes; I dare say, if it was needful for Christie to go. There will be many glad to get the place. You must speak to the Cairns’ girls, Annie.”
“Would you like to go, Christie?” asked her aunt, with a pertinacity which seemed, to Effie at least, uncalled for.
But Christie made no answer, and looked still at Effie.
“There is no use in discussing the question,” said Effie, more hastily than she meant to speak. “Christie is far better off at home. There is no need of her going. Don’t speak of it, Aunt Elsie.”
Now Aunt Elsie did not like to have any one differ from her—“to be dictated to,” as she called it. Effie very rarely expressed a different opinion from Aunt Elsie. But her usual forbearance made her doing so on the present occasion the more disagreeable to her aunt; and she did not fail to take her to task severely for what she called her disrespect.
“I didna mean to say anything disrespectful, Aunt Elsie,” said she, soothingly, and earnestly hoping that the cause of her reproof might be discussed no further. But she was disappointed.