Ann Fennel sat twirling one of her fair silken ringlets between her thumb and finger; a habit of hers when thinking.
“Where shall you live, Lavinia, if you do leave? Take another apartment at Sainteville?”
“I think not. It is a puzzling question. Possibly I may go back to Buttermead, and get some family to take me in as a boarder,” dreamily answered Lavinia. “Seventy pounds a-year will not keep me luxuriously.”
Captain Fennel lifted his face. “If it will not keep one, how is it to keep two?” he demanded, in rather defiant tones.
“I don’t know anything about that,” said Lavinia civilly. “I have not two to keep; only one.”
Nancy chanced to catch a glimpse of his face just then, and its look frightened her. Lavinia had her back to him, and did not see it. Nancy began to cry quietly.
“Oh, Lavinia, you will think better of this; you will not leave us!” she implored. “We could not do at all without you and your half of the money.”
Lavinia had finished her collar, and rose to take it upstairs. “Don’t be distressed, Nancy,” she paused to say; “it is a thing that must be. I am very sorry; but it is not my fault. As you——”
“You can stay in the house if you choose!” flashed Nancy, growing feebly angry.