new him so long
must feel his death dreadfully. We will try and keep everything just as
he would have liked it, won't we? You know what his wishes were, and
must help me to carry them out. You cannot have loved him more than I
did--dear Uncle Joachim!"

She felt very near tears herself, and condoned the sonorous nose-blowing
as the expression of an honourable emotion.

And Dellwig, when he presently reached his home and was met at the door
by his wife's eager "Well, how was she?" laconically replied "Mad."

CHAPTER VII

When Anna woke next morning she had a confused idea that something
annoying had happened the evening before, but she had slept so heavily
that she could not at once recollect what it was. Then, the sun on her
face waking her up more thoroughly, she remembered that Susie had stayed
upstairs with Hilton till supper time, had then come down, glanced with
unutterable disgust at the raw ham, cold sausage, eggs, and tepid coffee
of which the evening meal was composed, refused to eat, refused to
speak, refused utterly to smile, and afterwards in the drawing-room had
announced her fixed intention of returning to England the next day.

Anna had protested and argued in vain; nothing could shake this sudden
determination. To all her expostulations and entreaties Susie replied
that she had never yet dwelt among savages and she was not going to
begin now; so Anna was forced to conclude that Hilton had been making a
scene, and knowing the effect of Hilton's scenes she gave up attempting
to persuade, but told her with outward firmness and inward quakings that
she herself could not possibly go too.

Susie had been very angry at this, and still more angry at the reason
Anna gave, which was that, having invited the parson and his wife to
dinner on Saturday, she could not break her engagement. Susie told her
that as she would never see either of them again--for surely she would
never again want to come to this place?--it was absurd to care twopence
what they thought of her. What on earth did it matter if two inhabitants
of the desert were offended or not offended once she was on the other
side of the sea? And what did it matter at all how she treated them? She
heaped such epithets as absurd, stupid, and idiotic on Anna's head, but
Anna was not to be moved. She threatened to take Miss Leech and Letty
away with her, and leave Anna a prey to the criticisms of Mrs. Grundy,
and Anna said she could not prevent her