CHAPTER XXIX. “BONY.”
Mrs. Ellmother reluctantly entered the room.
Since Emily had seen her last, her personal appearance doubly justified the nickname by which her late mistress had distinguished her. The old servant was worn and wasted; her gown hung loose on her angular body; the big bones of her face stood out, more prominently than ever. She took Emily’s offered hand doubtingly. “I hope I see you well, miss,” she said—with hardly a vestige left of her former firmness of voice and manner.
“I am afraid you have been suffering from illness,” Emily answered gently.
“It’s the life I’m leading that wears me down; I want work and change.”
Making that reply, she looked round, and discovered Francine observing her with undisguised curiosity. “You have got company with you,” she said to Emily. “I had better go away, and come back another time.”
Francine stopped her before she could open the door. “You mustn’t go away; I wish to speak to you.”
“About what, miss?”
The eyes of the two women met—one, near the end of her life, concealing under a rugged surface a nature sensitively affectionate and incorruptibly true: the other, young in years, without the virtues of youth, hard in manner and hard at heart. In silence on either side, they stood face to face; strangers brought together by the force of circumstances, working inexorably toward their hidden end.
Emily introduced Mrs. Ellmother to Francine. “It may be worth your while,” she hinted, “to hear what this young lady has to say.”