"Now, Ann Canham, what's the meaning of this?" she began, pushing past Ann, who stood in the way, almost as if she would have kept her out.
"I beg a humble pardon, ma'am, a hundred times," was the low, deprecating answer. "I'd do anything rather than disappoint you—such a thing has never happened to me yet—but I'm obliged. Father's too poorly for me to leave him."
Nora surveyed her critically. The woman was evidently in a state of discomfort, if not terror. She trembled visibly, and her lips were white.
"I got a boy to run down to Mrs. Sanders's this morning at daylight, and ask her to take my place," resumed Ann Canham. "Until Jim came up here a short while ago, I never thought but she had went."
"What's the reason you can't come?" demanded Nora, uncompromisingly stern.
"I'd come but for father."
"You needn't peril your soul with deliberate untruths," interrupted angry Nora. "There's nothing the matter with your father; nothing that need hinder your coming out. If he's well enough to be in the house-place, smoking his pipe, he's well enough to be left. He was smoking. And what's that?"—pointing to the pipe her eyes had detected in the corner of the hearth.
Ann Canham stood the picture of helplessness under the reproach. She stammered out that she "daredn't leave him: he wasn't himself to-day."
"He was sufficiently himself to make off on seeing me," said angry Nora. "What's to become of my cleaning? Who's to do it if you don't? I insist upon your coming, Ann Canham."
It appeared almost beyond Ann Canham's courage to bring out a second refusal, and she burst into tears. She had never failed before, and hoped, if forgiven this time, never to fail again: but to leave her father that day was impossible.