“‘Then where is my father, I’d like to know?’
“Mrs. Felton laughed a hateful, meaning laugh, and said:
“‘Come, Miss Freeman, it’s time we were going.’
“With another good-by for Robin I shook Mrs. West’s proffered hand, and was soon out in the street with Mrs. Felton, who, when we were at a safe distance from the house, remarked in a very disagreeable tone:
“‘The cutest thing you ever did was to tell that child not to call the doctor papa. I’d have broke him of it long before this. It don’t sound well, ’specially after all’s been said about Mr. Richard and Miss Anna.’
“I wouldn’t question her, neither was there a necessity for it, as she was bent on talking, and of the Wests, too.
“‘I s’pose you know the doctor and his mother used to own West Lawn?’ was the next remark, which brought to my mind the conversation between her and Mrs. West.
“‘Used to own West Lawn!’ I repeated, surprised out of my cool reserve.
“‘To be sure they did; but, for some unaccountable reason which nobody ever knew, they sold it about the time Anna died, and bought the place where they live now. Of course when a person jumps right out of a good nest with their eyes wide open, nobody but themselves is to blame for where they land. Mrs. West held her head as high as the next one, drove her carriage, and used solid silver every day, and now its all gone. I lived with her as chamber-maid for a whole year. I was Sarah Pellet then.’
“I was too much interested to stop her, and suffered her to go on.