“It must be one of those tiresome old things from the Marley almshouses,” I said. Marley was a village about five miles off. “I know how they pester papa. He is far too good to them. Very likely she thinks the Whytes are new-comers, and that she’ll get something out of them.”
And no longer frightened, but rather disgusted, I prepared to walk on, when suddenly a sharp, almost imperious, voice bade me stop.
“Please to tell me if this is the way to the Yew Trees,” it said. “The Yew Trees—a cottage where Captain Whyte has come to live. Don’t you hear me, child—can’t you speak?” For I had been at first too startled to answer; and then, as I took in the meaning of the old woman’s words, I grew angry. What right had she to call the Yew Trees—mamma’s own old house, which would be my house some day—“a cottage”? And what business had she to speak to me so sharply—“child,” indeed—a dirty old tramp, or, worse, a cheat, a begging-letter impostor, or something of that kind, to speak to me so? For she was addressing me and not Anna, who was a little behind me.
“I don’t see that I am obliged to answer every beggar in the road who may happen to speak to me,” I said, very rudely, I must confess. For queer as she was, the old woman was plainly not a common beggar.
She came closer.
“Beggar,” she repeated, “beggar indeed!” Then she gave a horrid mocking little laugh. But suddenly she controlled herself again. “Be so good as to tell me where Captain Whyte’s cottage is.”
“It isn’t a cottage. It’s a large house,” I said. “I should know, considering it’s mine, or as good as mine.”
She started a little, then eyed me curiously.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I might have guessed it. Then you are one of the Whyte children; let me see—not the eldest?”