Meldreth's anger could be found there.

But no--surely not there! The Rector thought that he had seldom seen a
fairer picture than the one which met his eyes. Goodness, gentleness,
youth supporting age, beauty unabashed by feebleness and ugliness--these
were the characteristics of the scene on which he looked. Poor Mrs.
Meldreth lay back upon her pillows, her face wan and worn, her eyes
wandering, her gray hair escaping from her close cap and straying over
her forehead. But beside her knelt Enid Vane. The girl's arm was beneath
the old woman's bowed shoulders; it was evident that in this position
the invalid could breathe better and was more at ease. The sweet fair
face, with its slight indefinable shadow deepened at this moment into a
look of perfect pity, was bent over the wrinkled, withered countenance
of the sick woman. Never, the Rector thought, had he seen a lovelier
picture of youth ministering to the wants of age.

But a sense of incongruity also struck him, and he turned rather quickly
to Miss Meldreth, whose defiant eyes had been fixed upon him from the
first moment of his entrance into the room.

"You are Mrs. Meldreth's daughter?" he said, in a quick but not unkindly
undertone. "Why do you let the young lady there wait upon your mother?
Can you not nurse her yourself, my good girl?"

Sabina Meldreth curtseyed, but in evident mockery, for the color in her
cheeks grew higher, and her tone was anything but respectful when she
spoke.

"Of course I can nurse my mother, sir, and of course a young lady like
Miss Vane didn't ought to put her finger to anything menial," she said,
with a sharpness which took the Rector a little by surprise. "I'm quite
well aware of the difference between us. And"--anger now evidently
gaining the upper hand--"if you'd tell Miss Vane to go, sir, I'd be
obliged to you, for she is only exciting mother, and doing her no good."

"Your mother shows no symptoms of excitement," said the Rector quietly;
"and I must say, Miss Meldreth, that your words do not evince the
gratitude that I should have expected you to feel for the young lady's
kindness."

"Kindness! Oh, kindness is all very well!" said Miss Meldreth, with an
angry toss of her fair head. "But I don't know what kindness there is in
disturbing my poor mother--reading hymns and psalms, and all that sort
of thing!"

Mr. Evandale had hitherto wondered whether or no Miss Vane heard a word
of Sabina Meldreth's acid utterances, but