things in order, Gabriel lingered to tell Margaret again what an angel she was, and of his gratitude to her for the way she was receiving and making much of his sister.
"I like doing it, she interests me. I suppose she really believes in it all."
"I think so. You see her illness is partly nervous, partly her spine, but still to a certain extent, nervous. She is undoubtedly better since she had this hobby. The only thing that worries me is this family of whom she speaks, these Roopes. Of course they will get everything she has out of her, every penny. If it only stops at that …"
"You have seen them?"
"Not yet. I hear the man is an emaciated idler, not over-clean, his wife has evidently a bad form of St. Vitus's dance. The woman leads them all, the old mother, all of them. I expect they live upon what she makes. I've heard a story or two … I had not realized about this absent treatment, that Anne tells them where she goes. You don't mind?"
"Why should I mind?"
"She may have told them I come here …"
"Oh! that! I had forgotten."
It was true, she had forgotten that she must walk circumspectly. She had spoken of and forgotten it. Now she remembered, because he reminded her; reddened and wished she had not invited Anne. Anne, with her undesirable acquaintances and me-
