"Nonsense!" and Lucy blew out one of the candles as she spoke. "She will forget about it in the morning if we fall asleep now. I don't want to have the feeling of a well-spent day spoilt by a lecture."
The knock was repeated more peremptorily than before. It was too late to pretend unconsciousness now. Margaret went sullenly to the door and admitted her mother.
"What an uproar you two girls are making in here--din enough for a dozen--chattering like magpies, and laughing at this hour of the night, when decent people are in their beds! Nice complaints and remarks the people in adjoining rooms will make to-morrow!--though they may not venture to speak to me about it," she added grandly, as if she dared any one to take that liberty. "But that makes it worse. We cannot explain or set them right when they tattle behind our backs, and the stories will grow bigger and worse, till no one knows what they may come to.... You thoughtless pair! Lucy there speaking at the very tip of her voice. It will be a wonder if the people through the partitions do not know every word she has been saying--something, most likely, which will do her no credit. Mrs Chickenpip, I may tell you, is your neighbour on that side, and she does not spare people who annoy her. For your own sakes you had better respect her slumbers. She passed when I was hammering at your door, and she looked many things at me which good manners prevent people from saying; but she will find an opportunity of expressing them to some one else, or I am mistaken."
"Tiresome old cat," said Lucy. "No one will mind her. She is too grim and proper. Nobody heeds what childless old women say about young people."
"Old women? She is younger than I am. Would you speak of your own mother----?"
"Oh no, mammy dear! Nobody thinks of its own pretty mamma in that way;" and she threw her arms round her mother's neck.
"Have done, Lucy! I am in no mood for fooling, I assure you. Let me alone, and be quiet. It was you, Margaret, that I wanted to talk to. We must come to an understanding at once. This kind of thing which has been going on down-stairs must come to an end. I have been inexpressibly shocked and pained. It is more than my poor health can stand. Would you bring my hair with sorrow to the grave?" ... "Grey hairs with sorrow to the grave," was the Scriptural quotation which had come into her mind; but even to make a rhetorical point, she felt that she could not afford to attribute greyness to her carefully tended braids. She put up her hand and stroked them tenderly, which disturbed the thread of her argument, and she came to a stop, with her eyes resting reproachfully on her elder daughter.
Margaret was aware that she had better let the lecture run itself down. Interruptions, she knew by experience, acted like winding up a clock, and set it off again, tick-tack, on a refreshed career. She bore the reproachful gaze in silence as long as she was able, but at last it grew too much for her, and rather sullenly she answered--
"What do you mean, mother?"
"You know very well what I mean. Have I not told you many times that that childish nonsense with young Blount must be given up?"