Maggie MacKeever Read Online Free PDF

serenely. “You may trust Papa for that. Enough about my travels! Now that I am come to bear you company, how do you propose to entertain me, Nell?”
    “Entertain you?” All merriment had abandoned Lady March upon mention of footpads.
    “Entertainment!” Upon hearing this shocking suggestion, Henrietta was hard put to maintain a semblance of civility. “Marriot is missing and you talk of entertainment. Lady Amabel? Oh, shame!”
    “Don’t fly into a pelter! I did not mean that we should embark upon a round of dissipation.” Mab suspected it was as much the result other Cousin Henrietta’s appearance as of her spouse’s disappearance that Nell was looking so pulled-about. “However, there are a great many more worthwhile things to do with one’s time than to sit around and brood.”
    With this viewpoint—brooding being one other own favorite occupations—Henrietta naturally did not agree. Before she could speak, Eleanor did so. “What had you in mind, Mab?” said she.
    Mab was pleased to see Nell rouse; putting off the inquisitive Henrietta was very uphill work. “I thought we might explore the house,” she responded with a meaningful glance.
    Lady March did not take note of her friend’s speaking expression, being engrossed in the bone designs of fruit and birds and flowers which adorned her bedpost, as well as in her own unhappy thoughts. “Why should I wish to explore my own house?” she inquired plaintively. “I live here.”
    This was an awkward business! Lady Amabel charitably decided that prolonged exposure to a lugubrious curmudgeon like Henrietta must blunt the usual keenness of anyone’s response. “Not in the attics!” she responded, and in case her point was not taken gave Eleanor a sharp pinch. “I’ll wager there must be all manner of treasures hidden away.”
    “Treasure?” In addition to her other little flaws of character, Henrietta was not free of avarice.
    “Treasure indeed!” If belatedly aroused, Nell’s perceptions were acute. “Broken furniture and outdated clothing, not to mention mice. It is very dreary stuff, Mab. Still, if it will please you—”
    “Oh, yes!” Mab peered cautiously through the bed-hangings and was very satisfied with Henrietta’s look of distaste. “I don’t mind mice; we’re used to them at the Hall. They don’t make a nuisance of themselves if you have a broom and don’t mind the mess attendant upon squishing them. We will need to have a broom along with us anyway, because I daresay the attics are full of dust and cobwebs. Do not look so unhappy, Nell! I will defend you! It is not often that the creatures will attack— though I do recall an instance when one of our dairymaids had a mouse run up her skirts—” Mab had the satisfaction of seeing Henrietta abruptly depart the room. “Silly widgeon!” she remarked, though did not explain whether this unflattering judgment applied to Henrietta or to the unfortunate dairymaid. “Now we are private at last, Nell. What a dreadful creature Henrietta is! I wonder you haven’t asked her to leave the house.”
    “Would that I might!” Lady March leaned back among her pillows and heaved a great sigh. “Henrietta is such a prodigious bore that one feels sorry for her, somehow—although I may yet lose my temper if I must listen to much more drivel about being trained in a school of sorrow, and resignation and consolation and the will of God! You must not antagonize her, Mab. Henrietta is very likely to write to your father, if she suspects he doesn’t know you are here.” She pushed at the wide lace of her nightcap, the better to view her young friend. “He must be very worried about you, Mab.”
    “I doubt he has even noticed that I am missing.” Mab’s pretty face was wry. “You know what Papa is! Do not be imagining that he will be as distrait as you were over Marriot. If he notices I am not there, he will simply assume he has forgotten where I’ve gone. But if it will please you, I