“I have some money—a few pounds—that my papa gave me,” Sheila said.
“And when that is done?”
“He will give me more.”
“And yet you don’t wish him to know you have left your husband’s house! What will he make of these repeated demands for money?”
“My papa will give me anything I want without asking any questions.”
“Then he is a bigger fool than I expected. Oh, don’t get into a temper again. Those sudden shocks of color, child, show me that your heart is out of order. How can you expect to have a regular pulsation if you flare up at anything one may say? Now go and fetch me your Highland cousin.”
Mairi came into the room in a very timid fashion, and stared with her big, light-blue eyes into the dusky recess in which the little old woman sat up in bed. Sheila took her forward: “This is my cousin Mairi, Mrs. Lavender.”
“And are you ferry well, ma’am?” said Mairi, holding out her hand very much as a boy pretends to hold out his hand to a tiger in the Zoological Gardens.
“Well, young lady,” said Mrs. Lavender, staring at her, “and a pretty mess you have got us into?”
“Me!” said Mairi, almost with a cry of pain. She had not imagined before that she had anything to do with Sheila’s trouble.