"I say he ought not to go out. He is not well enough."
Miss Bettina heard this time. She raised her eyes and gazed at the doctor. It was impossible not to see that he did look ill.
"What's the matter with you, Richard?"
"It is only my cold," said the doctor. "It has settled here," touching his chest.
"That's just where mine is settling," grimly returned Aunt Bettina.
"Papa's eating nothing," said Sara.
"As if I could eat, with the skin off my throat and chest!" retorted Miss Bettina, mistaking the words, as usual. "It seems that nobody's eating this morning; you are not: we might as well not have had the breakfast laid. Toast was made to be eaten, Miss Sara Davenal, not to be wastefully crumbled into bits on the plate. I suppose you have not got a cold?"
Sara began to pick up the crumbs and the pieces, and to swallow them as she best could. Anything to escape particular observation.
"I wonder how Mrs. Cray is this morning?" she presently observed, having ransacked her brains for a subject to speak upon. Miss Bettina heard all awry.
"Oswald Cray! Why should you wonder how he is? Is he ill?"