'I can't help that, Miss Etta,' returned the woman insolently. 'If you are not more punctual in your payments I will go to the master myself and tell him.' But here I knocked sharply at the door to warn them of my presence, and Leah ceased abruptly, while Miss Darrell bade me enter.
She tried to meet me as usual, but her face was flushed, and she looked at me uneasily, as though she feared that I had overheard Leah's speech. I thought Leah looked sullen and stolid as she waited upon me. It was a most forbidding face. I was glad when Miss Darrell dismissed her on some slight pretext.
'Leah is in a bad temper this evening,' she observed, examining the clasp of a handsome bracelet as she spoke. I noticed then that she had beautiful arms, as well as finely-shaped hands, and the emerald-eyed snake showed to advantage. 'She is a most invaluable person, but she can take liberties sometimes. Perhaps you heard me scolding her; but I consider she was decidedly in the wrong.'
'She does not look very good-tempered,' was my reply.
Miss Darrell still looked flushed and perturbed; but she took up her fan and vinaigrette, and proposed that we should join Lady Betty in the drawing-room. Leah was in the hall. As we passed her she addressed Miss Darrell.
'If you can spare me a moment, ma'am, I should like to speak to you,' she said, quite civilly; but I thought her manner a little menacing.
'Will not another time do, Leah?' returned her mistress in a worried tone; but the next moment she begged me to go in without her.
Lady Betty was sitting by the open window with Nap beside her. I thought the poor little girl looked dull and lonely. She gave an exclamation of pleasure at seeing me, and ran towards me with outstretched hands. She looked like a child in her little white gown and blue ribbons, with her short curly hair.
'I am so glad to see you, Miss Garston! I thought Etta would keep you, I have been alone all the afternoon: Etta never sits with me now. How I wish Gladys would come back! I have no one to speak to, and I miss her horribly.'
'Poor Lady Betty!'