The only question she had to decide was whether she would be a match for the Scotchwoman. It would be worse than vain to challenge conclusions if she was likely to be proved the weaker. Brief consideration, however, persuaded her that there was but little fear of that. Her ankle was against her, and the fact that she had been inactive for a fortnight. But, on the other hand, though tough and brawny, Nannie might be old enough to be her grandmother. Even though handicapped by her ankle, Isabel did not doubt that she excelled her both in sheer strength and in agility, while as to knowledge of how to make the best of her powers she was convinced that, as compared with her, the other was nowhere. She resolved to bring the question as to who was to be mistress to an issue then and there--if necessary, in the presence of the man in the bed. Instead of answering Nannie she put a question to him. "Who is this objectionable old woman?" "My housekeeper." "Then, perhaps, you'll tell your housekeeper that, where I'm concerned, if she can't keep a civil tongue in her head and mend her manners, she won't be your housekeeper long--or mine either." "Hadn't you better tell her so yourself?" "Does that mean you're afraid to?" "Never interfered in the housekeeping since the day I was born, nor with Nannie either. She's always run this house as if it were her own." "Then the sooner she understands that she's not going to do so any longer the better it will be. If you won't make that plain to her, then I will. Now, my woman, remember that I'm your mistress, and that I'll stand impertinence from no one--least of all from a servant of mine. Leave this room at once; I'll talk to you when we're alone." Nannie seemed to be surprised almost into speechlessness by the other's attitude and manner of addressing her. It was a second or two before she could find words with which to illustrate her feelings. "Of all the brazen impudence! That a nameless besom, picked up from the roadside in the middle of the night, should have the face to speak to me like that! And you to call yourself Mr. Cuthbert's wife! Why, you're nothing but a shameless trollop! And though the doctor said that Mr. Cuthbert was to be kept as quiet as possible, if needs be I'll take you out of this room in my two arms, as you well know I did before. So out you come before I make you!" "Go it, Nannie!" The mocking encouragement from the man in the bed was to Isabel as the final straw. She did not allow him to range himself, before her face, on the woman's side. From words she proceeded to measures. Traversing the room with a rapidity which wholly ignored the twinges which proceeded from her injured ankle, she planted herself immediately in front of Nannie. "Are you going to leave this room, or am I to put you out of it?" "Me to leave Mr. Cuthbert's room, and ordered out of it by you! It'll be you that'll be put out of it, and that pretty quick, you----"