Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/110

 husband with the pillows. After a while he came down again.

“What is Mary doing? Why doesn’t she come down to eat?” asked Mrs. Lindley.

“She is staying with baby. The room is rather cold. I will ask the girl to put in a fire.” He was going absorbedly to the door.

“But Mary has had nothing to eat. It is she who will catch cold,” said the mother, exasperated.

Mr. Massy seemed as if he did not hear. Yet he looked at his mother-in-law, and answered:

“I will take her something.”

He went out. Mrs. Lindley shifted on her couch with anger. Miss Louisa glowered. But no one said anything, because of the money that came to the vicarage from Mr. Massy.

Louisa went upstairs. Her sister was sitting by the bed, reading a scrap of paper.

“Won’t you come down and eat?” the younger asked.

“In a moment or two,” Mary replied, in a quiet, reserved voice, that forbade anyone to approach her.

It was this that made Miss Louisa most furious. She went downstairs, and announced to her mother:

“I am going out. I may not be home to tea.”

No one remarked on her exit. She put on her fur hat, that the village people knew so well, and the old Norfolk jacket. Louisa was short and plump and plain. She had her mother’s heavy jaw, her father’s