"I wish to see Molly," she said.
"Molly? She's not in there, Aunt Kezia."
"One of my boots is missing. I conclude that Molly, for some purpose of her own, has taken it." She moved towards him and the door.
"Don't you trouble," he besought her; "you go and finish getting ready. I'll find Molly and ask her."
"I prefer to look for myself."
She entered the Stronghold and gazed around.
Jim peered inquisitively at her over the curtain top. Denis frowned at him and shook his head.
"There is my boot!" Miss Kezia dragged a large and solid boot from beneath a chair. "Well!" she ejaculated, and the amount of indignation she managed to compress into that one word was terrific. She held up the boot—there was not a button left on it. But on the floor, ranged in a neat little line, sat ten black buttons. The absolute regularity of the line, the precision and neatness, somehow seemed to aggravate the offence.
"I—I would like to whip Molly!"
Miss Kezia's accents were not so judicial as usual; there was a hurried, almost a pathetic, note about them. She was at a loss. "I will find Molly," she said with dire meaning, and stalked towards the door.