"I am sure they don't," said Aneta with fervor.
"Never," continued Mrs. Martin. "I got on with her only with difficulty before I married my present dear husband. I am not at all ashamed of his being a grocer. He gives me comforts, and is fond of me, and I have a much better time with him than I had in shabby, dirty lodgings at Shepherd's Bush. I don't want him to go to that school to-morrow; but I thought it right to let Maggie know he was coming, for, all the same, go he will. When James puts his foot down he is a very determined man."
"This is altogether a most unpleasant interview," said Lady Lysle, "and I have only come here at my niece's request.--Perhaps, Aneta, we can go now."
"Not yet, auntie darling.--Mrs. Martin, Maggie and I had a long talk yesterday, and will you put this matter into my hands?"
"Good heavens! what next?" murmured Lady Lysle to herself.
"Will you give me your husband's address, and may I go to see him?"
"You mean the--the--shop?" said Mrs. Martin.
"I don't go into that shop!" said Lady Lysle.
"Yes, I mean the shop," said Aneta. "I want to go and see him there."
"Oh, he will be so angry, and I am really terrified of him when he is angry."
"But think how much more angry he will be if you don't give me that address, and things happen to-morrow which you little expect. Oh! please trust me."
Aneta said a few more words, and in the end she was in possession of that address at Shepherd's Bush where Martin the grocer's flourishing shop was to be found.
"Thank you so very much, Mrs. Martin. I don't think you will ever regret this," said the girl.
Lady Lysle bowed to the wife of the grocer as she went out, but Aneta took her hand.
"Perhaps you never quite understood Maggie," she said; "and perhaps, in the future, you won't have a great deal to say to her."
"I don't want to; she never suited me a bit," said the mother, "and I am very happy with Bo-peep."
"Well, at least you may feel," said Aneta, "that I am going to be Maggie's special friend."
Mrs. Martin stood silent while Lady Lysle and her niece walked down the little path and got into the carriage. When the carriage rolled away she burst into a flood of tears. She did not know whether she was glad or sorry; but, somehow, she had faith in Aneta. Was she never going to see Maggie again? She was not quite without maternal love for her only child, but she cared very much more for Bo-peep, and quite felt that Maggie would be a most troublesome inmate of Laburnum Villa.