“My brother, so fastidious, so suffering!”
“And she,” cried the tire-woman, taking up the note, “still with the stench of the saucepan about her! Positively, madam, the room reeks.”
If Pomona carried any savors beyond those of lavender and the herbs she loved, it was of good sweet apples and fragrant burnt sugar. But she stood in her humiliation, and felt herself more unfit for all the high company than the beasts of her farmyard.
“You must not take it unkindly, child,” said Lady Julia, with her cruel little laugh and her soft voice, “but my Lord Blantyre, you see, hath ever a great distaste of all that is homely and uncomely. He hath suffered extraordinarily in that respect of late. We must humor him.”
Truly Pomona was punished. She marveled now at herself, remembering what her presumption had been.
“I will go home, madam, if you permit me.”
Again the ladies cried out. To thwart the invalid—’twas impossible. Was the girl mad? Nay, she would do as they bid? ’Twas well, then. Lady Julia, so kind was she, would help to clothe her in some better apparel and make her fit to present herself. The while the Lady Alethea would return to her post of assiduous nurse, and inform his lordship of Pomona’s speedy attendance.
Pomona gave herself into their hands.
Lord Blantyre lay on a couch in the sunshine. A fountain played merrily to his right; to his left his sister sat demurely at embroidery. In spite of her ladyship’s melancholy account, the patient seemed to have gained marvelously in strength. But he was in no better humor with the world than on the last day of his stay at the farm.
He tossed and fretted among his rich cushions.