Gould,'" and there was a feeble chuckling
laugh and old man's cough.
"Do let me go into the garden; I'm quite faint," cried Elvira,
jumping up.
It was true that the room was very close, rather medicinal, and not
improved by Miss Gould's perfumes; but there was an alacrity about
Elfie's movements, and a vehemence in the manner of her rejection of
the said essences, which made her governess not think her case
alarming, and she left her to the care of the young cousins, while
trying to make up for her incivility by courteously listening to and
answering her grandfather, and consuming the tea and sweet-cake.
When she went out to fetch her pupil to say goodbye, Miss Gould
detained her on the way to obtain condolence on the "dreadful trial
that old uncle was," and speak of her own great devotion to him and
the children, and the sacrifices she had made. She said she had been
at school with Elvira's poor mamma, "a sweetly pretty girl, poor
dear, but so indulged."
And then she tried to extract confidences as to Mrs. Brownlow's
intentions towards the child, in which of course she was baffled.
Elvira was found ranging among the strawberries, with Mary and Kate
looking on somewhat dissatisfied.
Both the poor girls looked constrained and unhappy, and Miss Ogilvie
wondered whether "Cousin Lisette's" evident intentions of becoming a
fixture would be for their good or the reverse.
Pages:
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457