"But don't you think she'd like to see me just a little while, Miss
Wren?" the girl inquired, her hand caressing the sleek head of one of
the big hounds as she spoke. Hounds were other objects of Miss Wren's
disfavor. "Lazy, pilfering brutes," she called them, when after hours
of almost incredible labor and ingenious effort they had managed to
tear down, and to pieces, a haunch of venison she had slung to the
rafters of the back porch. "You can come in, Kate, provided you keep
out the dogs," was her ungracious answer, "and I'll go see. I think
she's sleeping now, and ought not to be disturbed."
"Then I won't disturb her," was Miss Sanders's prompt reply, as she
turned away and would have gone, but the elder restrained her. Janet
did not wish the girl to go at all. She knew Angela had asked for her,
and doubtless longed to see her; and now, having administered her
feline scratch and made Kate feel the weight of her disapproval, she
was quite ready to promote the very interview she had verbally
condemned. Perhaps Miss Sanders saw and knew this and preferred to
worry Miss Wren as much as possible. At all events, only with
reluctance did she obey the summons to wait a minute, and stood with a
pout on her lips as the spinster vanished in the gloom of the hallway.
Angela could not have been asleep, for her voice was audible in an
instant. "Come up, Kate," she feebly cried, just as Aunt Janet had
begun her little sermon, and the sermon had to stop, for Kate Sanders
came, and neither lass was in mood to listen to pious exhortation.
Moreover, they made it manifest to Aunt Janet that there would be no
interchange of confidences until she withdrew. "You are not to talk
yourselves into a pitch of excitement," said she. "Angela must sleep
to-night to make up for the hours she lost--thanks to the abominable
remarks of that hardened young man." With that, after a pull at the
curtain, a soothing thump or two at Angela's pillow, and the muttered
wish that the coming colonel were empowered to arrest recalcitrant
nieces as well as insubordinate subs, she left them to their own
devices. They were still in eager, almost breathless chat when the
crack of whip and sputter of hoofs and wheels through gravelly sands
told that the inspector's ambulance had come. Was it likely that
Angela could sleep until she heard the probable result of the
inspector's coming?