"My dear Nell--"
She wrote for a few minutes, then she said:--.
"May I say I've no time to write any more now, Nell? I don't want to
write any more."
She went down into the garden and quarrelled violently with Stewart over
the rival merits of St. George and St. Patrick. In the very heart of
the argument she slipped and grazed her nose on the wall. But she
retrieved her position without loss of time or dignity, and went on with
the argument.
Nell met her later wandering aimlessly up and down the stairs, in and
out the rooms.
"Please don't touch me!" she said strenuously as Nell advanced, and she
ran away down to the kitchen. At luncheon she hardly ate anything; she
fidgeted, was rude to Miss Kezia.
Afterward she refused to go for a walk with the others. She said with
forlorn dignity:--
"I am tired of walkin' between houses that squeeze you to death, thank
you."
To omnibuses she made much the same objection. Nell, in pity, left her
alone.
Later on Nell went out to buy a tube of rose-madder. She was painting
desperately, in a sudden wild accession of determination to get back to
Kilbrannan somehow. When she came back she found Molly deep in a book in
the Stronghold.
"Where's the Atom?"
"Somewhere about."
Nell searched.
"She isn't."
"Oh, she's gone, then. I didn't know she'd gone yet. The maid came from
next door to ask her to go to tea with Stewart."
"I'm glad."
A little before six Miss Kezia came into the Stronghold. Denis whisked
Jim behind him, and faced her serenely.
"Molly, I wish to know if it is to you I am indebted for--these?"
She held out a pair of large, flat, square-toed shoes, and pointed
majestically to two frivolous-looking little bows on their toes.
Molly grew scarlet.
"Y-yes, Aunt Kezia! I--I--"
"I thought so. I should like to know _why_ my property is never to be
safe from you?"
"I--I saw--I saw there _had_ been bows--and I--I made fresh ones--"
"Yes. I picked the bows off myself. I object to them." She stared at
Molly with a puzzled frown. "You are a very peculiar girl," she said,
and left the room.
"I took _hours_ sewing them on!" wailed the discomfited Molly to an
unsympathetic and much-amused audience.
"I believe our dear aunt thinks you're a bit wanting," declared Denis,
tapping his brow.