“What a cranky old thing that Cattledon is!” cried Bill, throwing down his newspaper. “She’d have walked that girl off in the wet, you see.”
“How old is Cattledon?” asked Tod. “Sixty?”
“Oh, you stupid fellow!” exclaimed Helen, looking up from the stool on the hearthrug, where she was sitting, nursing her knees. “Cattledon sixty! Why, she can’t be above forty-five.”
It was disrespectful no doubt, but we all called her plain “Cattledon” behind her back.
“That’s rather a queer girl, that niece,” said Tod. “She won’t speak to one: she’s like a frightened hare.”
“I like her,” said Anna. “I feel very sorry for her. She gives one the idea of having been always put upon: and she looks dreadfully ill.”
“I should say she has been kept in some Blue Beard’s cupboard, amongst a lot of hanging wives that have permanently scared her,” remarked Bill.
“It’s Cattledon,” said Tod; “it’s not the wives. She puts upon the girl and frightens her senses out of her. Cattledon’s a cross-grained, two-edged——”
He had to shut up: Janet Carey was coming in again. For about five minutes no one spoke. There seemed to be nothing to say. Bill played at ball with Miss Deveen’s red penwiper: Anna began turning over the periodicals: Helen gave the cat a box when it would have jumped on her knee.
“Well, this is lively!” cried Tod. “Nothing on earth to do; I wonder why the rain couldn’t have kept off till to-morrow?”