"Mr. Lavendar," she called, as she caught up with his slow step, "you said you would advise me a little. Let us sit on this bench a moment and find out how we can untangle all the knots into which Aunt de Tracy tied us yesterday. I am so afraid of her that I am sure I spoke timidly and respectfully to her at first; but perhaps I showed more feeling at the end than I should. I am willing to apologize to her for any lack of courtesy, but I don't see how I can retract anything I said."
"It is hard for you," Lavendar replied, "because you have a natural affection for your mother's old nurse; and Mrs. de Tracy, I begin to believe, is more than indifferent to her. She has some active dislike, perhaps, the source of which is unknown to us."
"But she is so unjust!" cried Robinette. "I never heard of an Irish landlord in a novel who would practice such a piece of eviction. If I must stand by and see it done, then I shall assert my right to provide for Nurse and move her into a new dwelling. After you left the drawing room last night, I begged as tactfully as I could that Aunt de Tracy would sell me some of the jewels, so that she need not part with the land at Wittisham. She was very angry, and wouldn't hear of it. Then I proposed buying the plum-tree cottage, that it might be kept in the family, and she was furious at my audacity. Perhaps the Admiral's niece is _not_ in the family."
"She cannot endure anything like patronage, or even an assumption of equality," said Lavendar. "You must be careful there."
"Should I be likely to patronize?" asked Robinette reproachfully.
"No; but your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily stumble on a prejudice of hers at every step."
"I shouldn't like to understand her any better than I do now," and Robinette pushed back her hair rebelliously.
"Will you be my client for about five minutes?" asked Lavendar.
"Yes, willingly enough, for I see nothing before me but to take Nurse Prettyman and depart in the first steamer for America."
Mrs. Loring looked as if she were quite capable of this rather radical proceeding, and very much, too, as if any growing love for Lavendar that she might have, would easily give way under this new pressure of circumstances.