“I did not come here, auntie, dear.”
“Don’t auntie dear me, and deprive me of my natural sleep.”
“Have I?”
“Have you not? Three nights have I had to sit up. And natural sleep is as necessary to me at my age as is stays. I fall abroad without one or the other. Give me my choice—whether I’d have nephews and nieces crawling about me or erysipelas, and I’d choose the latter.”
“But, aunt—I’m sorry if I am a trouble to you.”
“Of course you are a trouble. How can you be other? Don’t burs stick? But that is neither here nor there.”
“Aunt, how came I to Pentyre Glaze!”
“I didn’t invite you, and I didn’t bring you—you may be sure of that. Captain Coppinger found you somewhere on the down at night, when you ought to have been at home. You were insensible, or pretended to be so—it’s not for me to say which.”
“Oh, aunt, I don’t want to be here.”
“Nor do I want you here—and in my room, too. Hoity-toity! nephews and nieces are just like pigs—you want them to go one way and they run the other.”