“It's awfully necessary for her,” Lily observed, cheerfully. “I've been buttoning my own shoes for some time, and I haven't developed a spinal curvature yet.” She kissed Mademoiselle's perplexed face lightly. “Don't get to worrying about me,” she added. “I'll shake down in time, and be just as useless as ever. But I wish you'd lend me your sewing basket.”
“Why?” asked Mademoiselle, suspiciously.
“Because I am possessed with a mad desire to sew on some buttons.”
A little later Lily looked up from her rather awkward but industrious labors with a needle, and fixed her keen young eyes on Mademoiselle.
“Is there any news about Aunt Elinor?” she asked.
“She is with him,” said Mademoiselle, shortly. “They are here now, in the city. How he dared to come back!”
“Does mother see her?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“Why 'certainly' not? He is Aunt Elinor's husband. She isn't doing anything wicked.”
“A woman who would leave a home like this,” said Mademoiselle, “and a distinguished family. Position. Wealth. For a brute who beats her. And desert her child also!”