"I do, and I consider it awful," said Patty.
She did not add any more, but went slowly into the house. Presently, feeling much depressed, she sought nurse's society. Nurse was turning some of the girls' skirts. She was a good needlewoman, and had clung to the house of Dale through many adverse circumstances. She was enjoying herself at present, and used often to say that it resembled the time of the fat kine in Egypt.
"Ah, Miss Patty!" she cried. "It's glad I am to see you, darling."
"Can I do anything for you, nursey?" asked Patty.
"Of course you can, dear. You can help me to unpick this frock. I am cutting it down to fit Miss Pen. It will make a very neat frock for her, and it seems unfair that dear Miss Tredgold should be at more expense than is necessary."
"Why," asked Patty, with a surprised look, "doesn't father pay for the things?"
"Mr. Dale!" cried nurse in a tone of wrath, "I'd like to see him. It's not that he wouldn't, and for all I can tell he may have the money; but, bless you, darling! he'd forget it. He'd forget that there was such a thing as dress wanted in all the world; and servants and food, and the different things that all well-managed houses must have, couldn't lie on his memory while you were counting twenty. Do you suppose if that dear, blessed lady didn't put her hand into her pocket in the way she does that you'd be having the right good time you are now having, and the nice clothes, and the good education, and the pretty ponies coming next week? And Miss Pauline, just because she's a bit pale, taken to the seaside? Not a bit of it, my dear Miss Patty. It's thankful you ought to be to the Providence that put it into your aunt's head to act as she has done. Ah! if my dear mistress was living she would bless her dear sister."
"Did you know mother before she was married?" asked Patty, taking up a skirt and the pair of sharp scissors which nurse provided her with, and sitting down happily to her task.
"Didn't I live with her when she was Miss Tredgold?" asked nurse. "And didn't I over and over again help Miss Sophia out of scrapes? Oh, she was a wild young lady!"
"You don't mean to tell me that Aunt Sophy ever did anything wrong?"
"Nothing mean or shameful; but for temper and for spirit and for dash and for go there wasn't her like. Not a horse in the land was wild enough to please her. She'd ride bareback on any creature you gave her to mount, and never come to grief, neither. She broke horses that trainers couldn't touch. She had a way with her that they couldn't resist. Just a pat of her hand on their necks and they'd be quiet and shiver all over as though they were too delighted for anything. Oh, she did follow the hounds! My word! and she was admired, too. She was a young lady in a thousand. And as for wanting to have her own way, she was for all the world like our Miss Pauline. It strikes me those two have very much in common, and that is why Miss Tredgold has taken such a fancy to your sister."