"I know all about it," said Mrs. Stewart, shaking herself angrily, "and my plain answer to you is this--as you sow you must reap. What else did you expect when you married that fool of a man, James Lewis?"
Mrs. Lewis made a great endeavor to rise from the sofa, she made a further effort to look dignified; but all she could really accomplish was to burst into a fresh wail of low weeping and to murmur under her breath, "Charlotte, you are cruel to me, you are cruel."
"I don't mean to be, my dear; but really, Caroline, you do annoy me. Have you no spunk at all in your composition? Are you still fretting your heart out for that good-for-nothing man?"
"Well, you see, I love him," said the poor wife. "The parting from my dear husband was a terrible trial. I think of him at all hours both day and night. I often have an uncontrollable desire to join him in Australia."
"Pray yield to it," said Mrs. Steward in the calmest of voices, "and when you go, take that great lout of a Caroline with you. She is as like you in appearance as one pea is like another. I am ashamed of you. Now, let us turn to a more congenial topic. Little Elma, I am glad to say, is made of very different stuff."
"Oh, Elma is a good girl," said Mrs. Lewis. At that moment Maggie came into the room.
"Have you ordered your servant to prepare any lunch for me?" said Mrs. Steward.
"Well, really--" Mrs. Lewis looked imploringly and with a vacant eye at Maggie.
"There's the remains of the salt beef, mum," said that small worthy, dropping a bob of a courtesy as she spoke.
"I couldn't touch it," said Mrs. Steward with a shudder. "Have you got a fresh egg in the house?"
"Oh, my dear, nothing of the kind--a fresh egg! Fresh eggs are worth their weight in gold. We have a stale egg, if you don't mind that."
Mrs. Steward indulged in another shudder even more violent than the last.
"My good girl," she said then, "pray get me a cup of tea and some thin toast, and be quick about it. See that the tea is really strong and the cream fresh."
"Cream!" murmured Mrs. Lewis; but Maggie had withdrawn.
"Well, now, that is comfortably settled," said Mrs. Steward, "and I can tell you what really brought me to town--I have come about Elma."
"To take Elma away from me, my own dear child?"