"How pleasant for Linette to be sandwiched between a measuring tape and a foot measure," exclaimed Annie, turning round from her position at the window and speaking for the first time.

Susy favoured her with a slow glance of intense dislike. Slightly turning her back she proceeded with her catechism of Nora.

"At least you can say something about the drawing-rooms. How many feet long is the princ.i.p.al drawing-room?"

Before poor Nora could reply, the door of the room was slowly opened and Mrs. Willis, with her usual calm, strong face, entered.

Susy Drummond gave such a start of dismayed surprise that Annie forgave her a good many of her sins on the spot.

Mrs. Willis came up to her and held out her hand.

"How do you do?" she said. "Sir John Thornton told us this morning at breakfast that we might have the pleasure of meeting you here. Are you well?"

"Oh, yes, I'm--I'm quite well, ma'am," replied Susy, stammering out her words in hopeless confusion.

"Nora, dear, you are looking very tired," continued Mrs. Willis. "I propose to have tea with you here alone, and to read to you for a little afterwards. Annie, will you take Miss Drummond to the drawing-room? I saw the tea equipage being taken in as I pa.s.sed."

Susy shambled out of the room in Annie's wake.

CHAPTER XXI.

HESTER SPEAKS HER MIND.

The next day was Sunday, and Susy, notwithstanding her strong inclinations, was forced to submit to Sir John Thornton's decree that she should not visit the Towers that day. Hester had sent a hurried note to Molly apprizing her of Susy's arrival, and begging of her, if she valued her peace of mind, not to come near the Grange on this dreadful Sunday.

It pa.s.sed somehow. Poor Hester always, during the remainder of her life, looked back upon it as a day of hopeless worry and confusion of brain.

Everyone seemed to be playing the game of cross-purposes with everyone else. Sir John kept on a.s.suring himself that he was the happiest man in existence, while Mrs. Bernard Temple and Antonia evidently trod on his corns at each step he took. Susy, in her moments of wakefulness, was sly and watchful. Antonia was absolutely indifferent to everything but high art. Mrs. Bernard Temple was busy as busy could be making hay while the sun shone. She guessed shrewdly--perhaps her experiences with the late Mr. Bernard Temple helped her--that it was during the time of courtship when most of her wishes would be carried out. She insisted, therefore, on going carefully into the many alterations which she proposed to make in the Grange, and Sir John, notwithstanding his innate aversion to fuss of any kind, was forced to listen to her demands, and, as he was really attached to her, she soon got him to say yes to her different proposals.

Nan and Hester, Annie and Nora, kept as much together as possible. This was made easy for them by kind Mrs. Willis, who not only kept Susy in considerable awe, but contrived to interest Antonia by allowing her to talk art to her by the hour. Antonia used a jargon which Mrs. Willis did not in the least understand, but even Antonia was not proof against the gracious sympathy of this high-minded woman.

The girls had, therefore, plenty of time for self-pity. Annie was the very soul of sympathy, and it was a comfort to poor Nora and Hester to pour out their sorrows in her affectionate ears. As for Nan, she took refuge a good part of the time with Mrs. Martin, who shook her fists, when Nan was not looking, at the backs of Sir John and Mrs. Bernard Temple as they walked down one of the lawns side by side.

"She's his match!" murmured the old woman. "She'll give it to him; now he'll know what a selfish wife means! He have 'ad his turn of the other kind, and now he'll know what the selfish sort is. Serve him right, I say; serve him well right!"

At last the weary Sunday came to an end and on Monday, after breakfast, Susy announced her intention of going over to the Towers.

"I suppose I can have a carriage?" she said, turning to Sir John, who paused in his exit from the dining-room to give her his polite attention.

"I suppose I can have a carriage?" she repeated.

Annie interrupted--

"The Towers is scarcely a mile away across the fields," she said.

"I don't think I can walk a mile," replied Susy; "my muscles are awfully weak--I dare not strain them."

"You can have a carriage with pleasure," said Sir John. "I will order one to be round at whatever hour you wish to name."

"At once, please," said Susy; "there's a good deal to be done. I've to measure all the rooms for carpets and druggets."

"You surely won't cover the rooms with carpets?" exclaimed Antonia. "I never heard of anything so Philistine. Oak parquetry, with rugs that slip about, is the only thing admissible. Better bare boards than carpets--carpets are simply atrocious!"

When Antonia began to speak, Sir John was heard to slam the door behind him; he had had quite enough of this young lady.

An eager discussion followed his departure, and it was finally decided that Susy, Hester, and Antonia, accompanied by Annie Forest, should drive over to the Towers.

"My part in the expedition will be this," exclaimed Annie, taking Hester aside for a moment. "I'll collect every single Lorrimer child I can lay hold of and carry them away to the most remote part of the grounds I can find, to be out of the reach of that detestable Susy and the torture she means to inflict. I should recommend you, Hester, to come with us."

"I'd like to very much," replied Hester, with a faint smile; "but I think I must stay with Mrs. Lorrimer and Molly. I don't know that I shall be the least comfort to them, but somehow I can't desert them."

A few moments later the little party drove off, and in the course of half-an-hour they arrived at the Towers. There was a winding and rather steep beech avenue, leading up to the older part of the mansion. Owing to the sad state of Squire Lorrimer's finances, this avenue was by no means in a state of complete repair. Hester turned her fleet little ponies--for she was driving--into it. They were spirited, but always well-behaved; on this occasion, however, they started violently, for Antonia was heard to utter a piercing shriek of rapture.

"Oh, those briars," she exclaimed--"those heavenly, heavenly, artistic briars! Stop the carriage, I beg of you, Miss Thornton! I must cut some without a moment's delay!"

"We can't stop on the side of a hill, Antonia," said Susy. "The ponies are fretting already, and nothing would induce them to stand still. You don't want us to be killed, I suppose, for the sake of an odious briar?"

The only answer Antonia made was to press her bony right hand with unnecessary force on Susy's right arm and vault from the carriage.

"Go on," she said, waving her hand to Hester; "I'll follow you presently. You don't suppose I'm going to lose a chance of this kind! I have brought my colour-box with me, and I mean to make a study of those briars before I go another step."

Suiting her action to her words, Antonia had already seated herself on a steep bank and was unfastening her portfolio.

"What a show she'll be when she does arrive," exclaimed Susy. "She'll probably bring three or four enormous briars into the house with her; but we may be thankful to be rid of her for a little, for she is so painfully positive. I place the greatest faith, of course, in her opinions, for she really is a magnificently ugly artist, and ugly art is, of course, the only correct thing now; but I do think we might have the bedrooms comfortable, don't you, Hester? With my tendency to forty winks at odd moments, I think it is scarcely safe to have every room covered with oak parquetry and rugs that slip about. The doctor says I am very deficient in muscle, and if I fell I might break a bone rather badly--don't you think so, Hester?"

"Yes, I do!" said Hester. "I think you had better furnish the Towers exactly as you please, and not take any opinions from Antonia!"

They had reached the brow of the hill now, and Hester was resting her ponies for a moment.

"How fiercely you speak," said Susy in an aggrieved tone. "Aren't you really interested in me and my future? Coming to the Towers is a very important step for me. I shall be the mistress, and in a position of great distinction. Father says I must entertain, and I hate entertaining, for it rouses one up so dreadfully; but I do think that you, as an old schoolfellow, might take a little interest in me."

"Listen to me for a moment," said Hester; "I want to say something."

"Oh, how appallingly solemn you are! I wish I had a lollipop to stop your mouth with."

"You must listen," said Hester in a firm voice; "I'm not joking. Times come in all lives when one cannot joke. I did not love you as my schoolfellow, Susy, and, frankly, I do not love you now; but, when you come to the Towers, I'll do everything in my power to help you, not because I like to do this, but because it's right. I can help you in many ways, for you don't know anything of county society; and, coming after such an old and popular family as the Lorrimers, people will be very apt to cut you if you are not careful. My father and I know everyone in the place, and we can get them to be kind to you if--if you deserve it; but that depends altogether on how you treat the Lorrimers now."

"Bravo," burst from Annie, who was sitting in the back seat, but who overheard Hester's words.

"Don't interrupt me, Annie, please," said Hester.

"The Lorrimers are my dearest friends," continued Hester. "Molly Lorrimer, whom you have not yet seen, and Annie, here, are the two greatest girl friends I have in the world. It is a great, great sorrow to the Lorrimers to leave the home where they and their people have lived before them for hundreds of years, and until they leave the place you ought not to talk before them of the way you mean to furnish the Towers when you are in possession. You ought to regard their feelings; and if you wish to please me, and if you wish me to help you by-and-by, you will. Remember, you are not in possession yet. The Towers is not your place yet."

"Well, I never!" exclaimed Susy. "Why, you've turned into an orator;"

but Hester's words had subdued her a good deal, for if she had one source of envy, it was the envy which _parvenus_ like her give to the old county people, and if there was an ambition in her stagnant soul, it was to be considered a county person herself.