Mrs. Webster rose, obedient to the voice of her sister, and walked with bent head towards the door.
“Your Aunt Lizzie is the only one who troubles much about me,” she said, as she quitted the room without even a good-night to her children.
“Take care, Maria, how you walk. You are treading on the front of your dress,” Miss Linkin said in a loud voice, as the sisters mounted the staircase.
Dan and Isabel exchanged despairing glances.
The scene which had just been enacted was not new to them. A little real ill-health, and a great deal of imaginary ill-health, had made Mrs. Webster a most unreasonable and aggravating woman. Yet both Isabel and Dan knew that she loved them both.
“It is poor Aunt Lizzie who has most to bear,” said Isabel to her brother. “Both you and I get away from it all. But Aunt Lizzie has it night and day and every night and every day. Aunt Lizzie ought to have no purgatory, she has had it here. I could never put up with it without a break as she does. I can’t help admiring her. She never varies. Every day she goes through her self-imposed tasks. She has nothing whatever to brighten her drab life, and she never grumbles. I don’t think any of us know quite what a heroine she has been through the years.”
“Quite true,” agreed Dan. “We can all be patient and heroic by fits and starts, but Aunt Lizzie keeps on being patient and heroic. She puts some of us to shame.”
CHAPTER XLII
HOW REPUTATIONS ARE RUINED
Miss Le Breton began to be a much-talked-of young woman in Hastings, and even Bexhill, on account of her wonderful horsemanship. She, with her uncle, had gone to the first meet of the Bexhill Harriers, and her portrait on her splendid mare Black Bess had got into the Hastings and St. Leonards Pictorial Advertiser. People began to leave cards at the White House, but disappointment awaited them—especially, perhaps, the men—for Mr. Alvin made it well understood that they wished to live a quiet and retired life, and the calls, with the exception of the Barrimores’ and the Picketts’, were not returned.
But no one had a word to say against Thomas Alvin, for he was found to be most liberal to local charities.