"You are a little mad, but you are a good girl, and I want to be friends with you. You have in you the spirit of a dozen Frank Lavenders."
"You will never make friends with me by speaking ill of my husband," said Sheila with the same proud and indignant look.
"Not when he ill uses you?" "He does not ill use me. What has Mr. Ingram been saying to you?"
The sudden question would certainly have brought about a disclosure if any were to have been made; but Mrs. Lavender assured Sheila that Mr. Ingram had told her nothing, that she had been forming her own conclusions, and that she still doubted that they were right.
"Now sit down and read to me. You will find Marcus Antoninus on the top of those books."
"Frank is in the drawing-room," observed Sheila mildly.
"He can wait," said the old woman sharply.
"Yes, but you cannot expect me to keep him waiting," with a smile which did not conceal her very definite purpose.
"Then ring, and bid him come up. You will soon get rid of those absurd sentiments."
Sheila rang the bell, and sent Mrs. Paterson down for Lavender, but she did not betake herself to Marcus Antoninus. She waited a few minutes, and then her husband made his appearance, whereupon she sat down and left to him the agreeable duty of talking with this toothless old heathen about funerals and lingering death.
"Well, Aunt Lavender, I am sorry to hear you have been ill, but I suppose you are getting all right again, to judge by your looks."
"I am not nearly as ill as you expected."
"I wonder you did not say 'hoped,'" remarked Lavender carelessly. "You are always attributing the most charitable feelings to your fellow-creatures."
"Frank Lavender," said the old lady, who was a little pleased by this bit of flattery, "if you came here to make yourself impertinent and disagreeable, you can go down stairs again. Your wife and I get on very well without you."
"I am glad to hear it," he said: "I suppose you have been telling her what is the matter with you."
"I have not. I don't know. I have had a pain in the head and two fits, and I dare say the next will carry me off. The doctors won't tell me anything about it, so I suppose it is serious."
"Nonsense!" cried Lavender. "Serious! To look at you, one would say you never had been ill in your life."