“What’s it about, Jenny? Eh? Speak up, my dear! Not crying, is she?
Temper, that’s it. Don’t say I said so.”
“It’s all right, Auntie. She—they—it’s the bad news. It’s upset them
all.”
“Bad news? Fiddlesticks! Temper, I call it. Why shouldn’t the girl get
married? Not much money, but a pleasant fellow. Time for her to settle.
I said to her—‘My dear, you follow your heart.’ But Nita tried to stop
it. Nita couldn’t get over it. Cried. Temper. That’s it. Look at her
now. ’Sh! Don’t let her see you.”
But Anita wasn’t looking at me and she wasn’t crying. I suppose
Great-aunt must have known what she was talking about; but it wasn’t
easy to imagine my cousin soft and red-eyed like that great,
good-natured Miss Howe. Her little sharp face looked as controlled as if
it were carved. Yet, as she said herself, she was shaken. That showed in
the jerkiness of her movements, the sharpening of her voice, in the
break-up of her accustomed flow of words into staccato, like a river
that has come to some rocks: and her hands had a clock-work, incessant
movement, clutch-clutch, fingers on palm, that her eyes repeated. They
were everywhere at once, resting, flitting, settling again, yet seeing
nothing, I think, while she listened to Mr. Flood and grew more
irritated with every word.
“Why bad news?” said Great-aunt in my ear. “It’s a son, isn’t it?”