"Let's see the letter," said the Earl. She handed it to him; and then, going behind his high chair, looked over him as he read. No one ever waits really patiently for another to read what he or she has already read. So Gwen did not. She changed the elbow she leaned on, restlessly; bit her lips, turn and turn about; pulled her bracelets round and round, and watched keenly for any chance of interposing an abbreviated précis of the text, to expedite the reading. Her father preferred to understand the letter, rather than to get through it in a hurry and try back; so he went deliberately on with it, reading it half aloud, with comments:
"At Strides Cottage,
"Chorlton-under-Bradbury,
"November 22, 1854."My Lady,
"I have followed your instructions, and brought the old Mrs. Prichard here to stay until you may please to make another arrangement. My mother will gladly remain at my daughter's at her husband's farm, near Dessington, till such time as may be suitable for Mrs. Prichard to return. This I do not wish to say because I want to lose this old lady, for if your ladyship will pardon the liberty I take in saying so, she is a dear old person, and I do in truth love her, and am glad to have charge of her."
"She seems always to make conquests," said the Earl. "I acknowledge to having been épris myself."
"Yes, she really is an old darling. But go on and don't talk. It's what comes next." She pointed out the place over his shoulder, and he took the opportunity to rub his cheek against her arm, which she requited by kissing the top of his head. He read on:
"Nor yet would my mother's return make any difference, for we could accommodate, and I would take no other children just yet a while. Toby goes home to-morrow. But I will tell you there is something, and it is this, only your ladyship may be aware of it, that the old lady has delusions and a strange turn to them, in which Dr. Nash agrees with me it is more than old age, and recommends my mother, being old too, not to come back till she goes, for it would not be good for her, for anything of this sort is most trying to the nerves, and my mother is eighty-one this Christmas, just old Mrs. Prichard's own age."
"I think that's the end of the sentence," said the Earl. "I take it that Nash, who's a very sharp fellow in his own line, is quite alive to the influence of insanity on some temperaments, and knows old Mrs. Marrable well enough to say she ought not to be in the way of a lunatic.... What's that?"
"A lunatic!" For Gwen had started and shuddered at the word.
"I see no use in mincing matters. That's what the good woman is driving at. What comes next?" He read on:
"I will tell all what happened, my lady, from when she first entered the house, asking pardon for my length. It began when I was showing the toy water-mill on our mantel-shelf, which your ladyship saw with Miss Grahame. I noticed she was very agitated, but did not put it down to the sight of this toy till she said how ever could it have been my grandfather's mill, and then I only took it for so many words, and got her away to bed, and would have thought it only an upset, but for next morning, when I found her out of bed before six, no one else being up but me, measuring over the toy with her hands where it stood on the shelf, and I should not have seen her only for our dog calling attention, though a dumb animal, being as I was in the yard outside."