Although I had sent word that I was coming home, there was no one to
welcome me when I arrived.
Aunt Bridget was out shopping, and Betsy Beauty (in the sulks with me,
as I afterwards heard, for not asking her to the house-party) had run
upstairs on hearing our horn, so I went direct to my father's room.
Nessy MacLeod answered my knock, but instead of opening the door to let
me in, she slid out like a cat and closed it behind her. Never had her
ungainly figure, her irregular features, and her red head seemed to me
so repugnant. I saw at once that she was giving herself the airs of
housekeeper, and I noticed that she was wearing the bunch of keys which
used to dangle from Aunt Bridget's waist when I was a child.
"Your father is ill," she said.