Your husband, Mrs. Morton, was his grandfather and my
brother. I will allow no one to tell me that I am a stranger at
Bragton. I have lived here many more years than you."
"A stranger to him, I meant. And now that he is ill--"
"I shall stay with him--till he desires me to go away. He asked me
to stay and that is quite enough." Then she got up and left the
room with more dignity;--as also she had spoken with more
earnestness,--than Mrs. Morton had given her credit for possessing.
After that the two ladies did not meet again till the next day.
CHAPTER IV
The two old Ladies
On the next morning Mrs. Morton did not come down to breakfast, but
sat alone upstairs nursing her wrath. During the night she had made
up her mind to one or two things. She would never enter her
grandson's chambers when Lady Ushant was there. She would not speak
to Reginald Morton, and should he come into her presence while she
was at Bragton she would leave the room. She would do her best to
make the house, in common parlance, "too hot" to hold that other
woman. And she would make use of those words which John had spoken
concerning Chowton Farm as a peg on which she might hang her
discourse in reference to his will. If in doing all this she should
receive that dutiful assistance which she thought that he owed
her,--then she should stand by his bed-side, and be tender to him,
and nurse him to the last as a mother would nurse a child.
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