“I should think it would be damp,” suggested Mrs. Breen.
“She will come in when the tea-bell rings. She wouldn’t come in now, if I told her.”
“Well,” said the elder lady, “for a person who lets her doctor pay her board, I think she’s very independent.”
“I wish you wouldn’t speak of that, mother,” said the girl.
“I can’t help it, Grace. It’s ridiculous,—that’s what it is; it’s ridiculous.”
“I don’t see anything ridiculous in it. A physician need not charge anything unless he chooses, or she; and if I choose to make Louise my guest here it’s quite the same as if she were my guest at home.”
“I don’t like you to have such a guest,” said Mrs. Breen. “I don’t see what claim she has upon your hospitality.”
“She has a double claim upon it,” Grace answered, with a flush. “She is in sickness and in trouble. I don’t see how she could have a better claim. Even if she were quite well I should consider the way she had been treated by her husband sufficient, and I should want to do everything I could for her.”
“I should want her to behave herself,” said Mrs. Breen dryly.
“How behave herself? What do you mean?” demanded Grace, with guilty heat.