"Nonsense, Howard. As if you didn't understand! Euphrasia Mackenzie, of course. Here has she been nearly a fortnight in the house, and the servants are run off their legs—or, at all events, they think so, which comes to the same thing. I am sure, I did feel that we had done as much as could be expected of us. And now Robert must needs make all this stir about nothing." "What stir?" "Oh, he declares we leave her a great deal too much alone, and let her feel dull, and don't attend to her as we ought. He fairly scolded Letitia. Poor dear, I do pity her, having to go and sit in that stuffy little room for an hour at a time!" "Something must be wrong with our household arrangements if we put our guests into stuffy little rooms." "You know what I mean. Not exactly stuffy, but one doesn't want to sit there half the day. And poor Letitia was so bent on going to Bath with the Fearings. Of course I made her give that up, but it was rather hard on the child. And she says Euphrasia is quite changed from what she used to be, so stiff and cold." "I wonder whether Letitia ever does sit with Miss Mackenzie for anything like half-a-day—or even for an hour at a time?" "I'm sure I can't tell. I only know I am perpetually at her about it. And I shall be thankful when it is all over. Euphrasia is not an interesting invalid. And she hardly ever says a word of apology for the trouble she gives." "Does she not? Robert speaks of her as excruciatingly anxious not to be a bother." "Oh, as to that—I suppose she doesn't make more work than she can help. I don't complain of the girl. Some people in her position would be much more thoughtless. But, of course, there are no end of things to be done. And now Robert wants us to have her wheeled every day into Letitia's boudoir—" "Where is that?" "The little room that used to be her nursery. Letitia turned it into a sitting-room when she came home from school, but she never sits there now by any chance. And Robert wants us to contrive not to leave Euphrasia so much alone. That is the worst of having a near relative for one's doctor. He feels free to say whatever he happens to think. It seems he found her crying with nothing to read. So absurd not to ask for what she wanted, if she had not a book! Robert does not commonly make such a fuss about his patients, and why he should with Euphrasia Mackenzie, I can't imagine. I never in my life saw a more unattractive girl; did you?" "That wasn't precisely my impression, I confess. I thought she looked sensible." "Oh, sensible—if you think so much of being just sensible! Yes, I dare say she is sensible—any amount! But not attractive—not pretty, or clever, or anything." Then, reverting to her former subject, "As likely as not, if I tell Horris that he is to wheel the sofa in and out of that room every day, he will say he hasn't time, and can't do it. That man gives himself such airs! I believe he will want to go the next thing."