To be sure they had been made up for company that was expected, but the visitors would not arrive for a day or two, and it seemed such an inhospitable thing to send that old man away down to the lodge, with its close, small rooms, to sleep.
“I hope I shall never be rich if it would make me hardhearted like that,” she said, with indignation. “I would prefer to struggle all my life with poverty, and have a kind and generous heart—one that can feel for others in trouble and sorrow. How tired and ill he looked, too,” she went on, recalling his pale face and drooping attitude, “and he is such a splendid man!”
“It makes me think of those other words,” she said, the tears springing to her eyes: “‘And there was no room in the inn,’ and of One who, in consequence, had to lie in a manger. That could not be helped, for there was no room; but this is shameful, for there is plenty and to spare here. How can any one treat one’s father’s brother so?”
CHAPTER XI.
FILTHY LUCRE.
The next morning word was brought from the lodge that Mr. Rosevelt was quite ill, and not able to come up to the mansion for his breakfast.
“Breakfast, indeed!” muttered Mrs. Richards, with a toss of her proud head; “as if he supposed he was going to be invited to sit at the table with my fashionable guests in his shabby clothes.”
She had received a full account of his arrival and appearance from her husband the night previous, after Mr. Rosevelt’s departure for the lodge.
Mr. Richards went at once to see him, and to give orders to Mrs. Mellen, the wife of the gardener, to do everything for his comfort.
Later, his wife, with much inward fretting and fuming, followed his example, not because she had any desire to see him or felt in any way anxious about him, but to save unpleasant remarks and comments.
She met her uncle with anything but a cordial greeting, and which, even in the midst of his suffering, he could not fail to feel keenly.