The explanation only aggravated the offense:
if Mrs. Carteret could have overlooked the disobedience, she would by no
means have retained in her employment a servant whose sister worked for
the Miller woman.
Old Mrs. Ochiltree had within a few months begun to show signs of
breaking up. She was over seventy years old, and had been of late, by
various afflictions, confined to the house much of the time. More than
once within the year, Mrs. Carteret had asked her aunt to come and live
with her; but Mrs. Ochiltree, who would have regarded such a step as an
acknowledgment of weakness, preferred her lonely independence. She
resided in a small, old-fashioned house, standing back in the middle of
a garden on a quiet street. Two old servants made up her modest
household.
This refusal to live with her niece had been lightly borne, for Mrs.
Ochiltree was a woman of strong individuality, whose comments upon her
acquaintance, present or absent, were marked by a frankness at times no
less than startling. This characteristic caused her to be more or less
avoided. Mrs. Ochiltree was aware of this sentiment on the part of her
acquaintance, and rather exulted in it. She hated fools. Only fools ran
away from her, and that because they were afraid she would expose their
folly. If most people were fools, it was no fault of hers, and she was
not obliged to indulge them by pretending to believe that they knew
anything. She had once owned considerable property, but was reticent
about her affairs, and told no one how much she was worth, though it was
supposed that she had considerable ready money, besides her house and
some other real estate.
Pages:
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138