“I don’t,” I replied, with perfect candour, and equal truth. “I never do.”
Of course the confession was not lost upon mamma.
“If I’d spoken to my mother like that, in her presence, she’d have beaten me; but, in those days, daughters used to look upon a mother as a parent. Now, she might as well be the cattle in the field. And the consequences of it will be, Norah O’Brady, that you may as well go clerking, or companion to an old lady, or something equally as degrading to your father’s child, for all the chances you’ll ever have of getting decently settled in life—in spite of all the half-witted men who’re invading my house at this time of the morning. And what it is that I’m to do with them, I’d like to know.”
Audrey repeated the question which I had left unanswered.
“Shall I send them away?”
I hesitated, searching her face for what was written on it. It was with a fresh sinking of the heart that I understood, or thought I did.
“No; let them wait. I will be as quick as I can, and come down to them. It will be better to get it over.”
She stooped down and whispered in my ear, so that, this time, I was the only one who heard:
“Men are the least dependable of all God’s creatures. You mustn’t mind.”
It was a cryptic utterance—to those who were without the key, which I fancied that I had. She took mamma away with her. I was left alone.