“No doubt Matthew is a great authority,” said Mrs. Buchanan, with a violent snap of her big scissors.
“Well, mamma,” said Marion, with the soft answer that does not always take away wrath, “you’ll allow that he ought to be to me——”
And there then ensued a deep silence; a whole large hole in the heel of Rodie’s stocking filled up, as by magic, in the mother’s hands, quickened by this contrariety, and the sudden absorption in her work which followed, and Marion marked twelve towels, one after the other, so quickly that Elsie could scarcely follow her with the iron in time to make them all shine. It was she who took up the thread of the conversation again, but not wisely. Had she been a sensible young person, she would have introduced a new subject, which is the bounden duty of a third party, when the other two have come to the verge of a quarrel. But Elsie was only sixteen, and this discussion had called back her own strange experience in the turret-room.
“It must have given papa a great deal of thinking,” she said. “Once me and Rodie were in the turret as—as he never comes now——” This was very bad grammar, but Elsie’s heart was full of other things. “We were reading Quentin Durward, and very, very taken up with all that was going on at Liege, if you mind.” Liége had no accent in Elsie’s mind or her pronunciation. “And then you came into the study, mother, and talked. And after he began again with his sermon. It was a long time ago, but I never forgot, for it was strange what he said. It was as if he was learning the parable off by heart. ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore’—or ‘write fifty.’ He said it over and over, just those words—sometimes the one and sometimes the other. It was awfu’ funny. We both heard it; both me and Rodie, and wondered what he could be meaning. And we dared not move, for though he knew we were there, we did not like to disturb him. We thought he had maybe forgotten us. We were so stiff, we could scarcely move, and that was always what he said, ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down——’”
Mrs. Buchanan had dropped her work and raised her head to listen; a puzzled look came over her face, then she shook her head, slightly, unable to solve the problem which she dimly felt to be put before her. She said, at last, with a change of countenance:
“I came into the study and talked?—and you there? What was I talking about? do you mind that?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Elsie. “Old Mr. Anderson; it was just before he died.”
“And you were there, Rodie and you, when I came in to talk private things with your father! Is that the kind of conduct for children in a decent house?”
Mrs. Buchanan had reddened again, and wrath, quite unusual, was in her tone.
“Mamma, when it was raining, and we had a book to read, we were always there, and father knew, and he never said a word!”