Her face denied it; the look of suffering was there still. She tore up the letter which she had been writing, and threw the fragments into the waste-paper basket.
“That’s the second letter you’ve torn up,” Zo remarked.
“Say a word more—and you shall have bread and water for tea!” Miss Minerva was not free from irritation, although she might be free from pain. Even Zo noticed how angry the governess was.
“I wish you could drive with me in the carriage,” said Carmina. “The air would do you so much good.”
“Impossible! But you may soothe my irritable nerves in another way, if you like.”
“How?”
“Relieve me of these girls. Take them out with you. Do you mind?”
Zo instantly jumped off her chair; and even Maria looked up from her book.
“I will take them with pleasure. Must we ask my aunt’s permission?”
“We will dispense with your aunt’s permission. She is shut up in her study—and we are all forbidden to disturb her. I will take it on myself.” She turned to the girls with another outbreak of irritability. “Be off!”