Part the Second.
“Johnny, what can I do? What do you think I can do?”
In the pretty grey silk that she had worn at her father’s wedding, and with a whole world of perplexity in her soft brown eyes, Anne Lewis stood by me, and whispered the question. As soon as the bride and bridegroom had driven off, Anne was to depart for Maythorn Bank, with Julia and Fanny Podd; all three of them to remain there for the few days that Dr. and Mrs. Lewis purposed to be away. But now, no sooner had the sound of the bridal wheels died on our ears, and Anne had suggested that they should get ready for their journey home, than the two young ladies burst into a laugh, and said, Did she think they were going off to that dead-alive place! Not if they knew it. And, giving her an emphatic nod to prove they meant what they said, they waltzed to the other end of the room in their shining pink dresses to talk to Mr. Angerstyne.
Consternation sat in every line of Anne’s face. “I cannot go there alone, or stay there alone,” she said to me. “These things are not done in France.”
No: though Maythorn Bank was her own home, and though she was as thoroughly English as a girl can be, it could not be done. French customs and ideas did not permit it, and she had been brought up in them. It was certainly not nice behaviour of the girls. They should have objected before their mother left.
“I don’t know what you can do, Anne. Better ask Miss Dinah.”
“Not go with you, after the arrangements are made—and your servant Sally is expecting you all!” cried Miss Dinah Lake. “Oh, you must be mistaken,” she added; and went up to talk to them. Julia only laughed.
“Go to be buried alive at Maythorn Bank as long as mamma chooses to stay away!” she cried. “You won’t get either of us to do anything of the kind, Miss Dinah.”
“Mrs. Podd—I mean Mrs. Lewis—will be back to join you there in less than a week,” said Miss Dinah.