“Judith,” said Miss Trevisa, bridling up. “You forget yourself.”
“No, Aunt! I am only pleading for Jamie, trying to make you feel for him, when he was locked up in an asylum. How would you like it, Aunt, if you were snatched away to Barthelmy fair, and suddenly found yourself among tight-rope dancers, and Jack Puddings?”
“Judith, I insist on you holding your tongue. I object to being associated even in fancy, with such creatures.”
“Well—but Jamie was associated, not in fancy, but in horrible reality, with idiots.”
“Jamie goes to Scantlebray’s Asylum to-day.”
“Auntie!”
“He is already in the hands of the brothers Scantlebray.”
“Oh, Auntie—no—no!”
“It is no pleasure to me to have to find the money, you may well believe. Seventy pounds is not, as I said, seventy pence, it is not seventy farthings. But duty is duty, and however painful and unpleasant and costly, it must be performed.”
Then from the adjoining room, “the shop,” came Mr. Menaida.