"Oh, thank you!" said Edith again. She could not trust herself to say more, for the words, that she felt were kindly meant, almost made her cry.
"Now you had better go down to the parlour," Stimson went on. "Miss Harley and your papa won't expect you to be long, and the tea is ready, I know."
With a beating heart Edith stepped down the wide, old-fashioned staircase, and went shyly in at the door which Stimson opened for her. She found herself in a large, handsomely-furnished room, where the table was laid for tea; and Miss Harley sat before the tray, already busy with cups and saucers.
"Come here, Edith, and sit where I can see you. Yes, that is a great improvement. Your hair looks tidy and respectable now."
After this greeting, to Edith's great relief, she was left to take her tea in peace and silence, the doctor and his sister being occupied in conversation about their early days, and continually mentioning the names of persons and places of whom she knew little or nothing.
Only once the girl started to hear her aunt say, "I always told you, Henry, that it was a great mistake. With your talents you might have done almost anything; and here you are, a man still in middle life, saddled and encumbered with a helpless invalid wife and half a score of children, to take all you earn faster than you can get it. It is a mere wasted existence, and if you had listened to me it might all have been different."
"How cruel!" exclaimed Edith to herself indignantly. "Does Aunt Rachel think I am a stock or a stone, to sit and hear my mother—all of us—spoken about like that? I shall never, never be able to bear it!"
Even the doctor was roused. "Once for all, Rachel," he said in a peremptory tone, "you must understand that I cannot allow my wife and children to be spoken of in this manner. No doubt I have had to make sacrifices, but my family have been a source of much happiness to me; and Maria, who cannot help her health, poor thing! has done her best under circumstances that would have crushed a great many women. As for the children, of course they have their faults, but altogether they are good children, and I often feel proud of them. You have been kind enough to ask Edith to stay here, but if I thought you would make her life unhappy with such speeches as you made just now, I would take her back with me to-morrow."
"Well, well," said Miss Harley, a little frightened at the indignation she had raised. "You need not take me up so, Henry. Of course I shall not be so foolish as to talk to the child just as I would to you. I have her interest and yours truly at heart; and since I don't want to quarrel with you again, we will say no more of your wife and family. If you have quite finished, perhaps we might take a turn in the garden."
The rest of the evening passed quietly away. Edith was glad when the time came to go to her room, only she so dreaded the morrow, that would have to be passed in Aunt Rachel's company, without her father's protecting presence.