Page:The Climber (Benson).djvu/56

46 Miss Catherine if she and Miss Lucia have quite finished with the morning paper. If they have quite finished quite ask them to be so good as to let you bring it up to me."

"Yes, 'm," said Jane, "and shall I take the cup and plate away?"

Elizabeth was disconcerted only for a moment.

"Yes," she said. "You should have taken them away at breakfast- time when you did the room. Do not tell me you did not see them; you would, of course, have removed them if you had."

That was adroit; it was really adroit. Also it made her feel as if Jane had indeed forgotten to take them away earlier in the morning, and that she herself had magnanimously refrained from finding fault.

She spent a pleasant hour over the paper, and by lunch time had quite got to feel that she had not breakfasted at all. And she went downstairs, putting one foot and then the other on to each step, weak and tried, it is true, but full to the brim of Christian forbearance.

There was hash for lunch, and the weather being very warm, the hash, like the worm that has never yet come under the observation of naturalists, had turned a little. Elizabeth put it from her.

"No doubt one is best without meat in this hot weather," she said faintly, "but with no breakfast either—Catherine, remind me to speak to the butcher. Lucia love, you would be wise not to attempt the hash. There should be some cold meat in the house."

"There isn't," said Cathie. "Besides, the hash is all right. Stuff and nonsense, Elizabeth!"

"You are luckier in the selection of pieces for yourself than in pieces for me," observed Elizabeth. "It is no matter at all. But not having eaten to-day, I looked forward to my lunch."

Lucia looked up at Aunt Cathie. Her face wore an expression of hard indifference, which it was her habit to assume involuntarily when she was distressed. Aunt Elizabeth's martyred sigh completed Lucia's resolution.

"But I saw you going upstairs about eleven with a cup of milk and some bread and butter, Aunt Elizabeth," she said.

Aunt Elizabeth was exposed, and she knew it. She became wonderfully dignified.

"I make no complaints," she said. "A little pudding, if there is some, and a little bread and cheese is amply sufficient, and will make a meal of which many poor people would be glad."