"Prejudiced, Aunt Bettina. Lady Oswald says the Oswald family are prejudiced." "You need not roar out in that way, Sara; I can hear, I hope. I am not so deaf as all that comes to. What's he prejudiced at?--the railway? He ought not to be, he is one of its engineers." "Not Mr. Oswald Cray, aunt. The Oswald family. They are prejudiced against him." "If you speak to me again in that manner, Sara I shall complain to your papa. One would think you were calling out to somebody at the top of the chimney. As if I and Lady Oswald did not know that the Oswald family are prejudiced against Oswald Cray? We don't want you to tell it us from a speaking-trumpet; we knew it before you were born. I don't think he cares for their prejudices, Lady Oswald," Miss Davenal added, turning to her. "He would be very foolish if he did. _I_ don't. They are prejudiced, you know, against me." "I think the world must be coming to an end, with all these rails and stations and sheds," fretfully spoke Miss Davenal. "The news has made me ill," said Lady Oswald, who liked nothing half so well as to speak of her own ailments. "I was getting better, as Dr. Davenal can tell you, but this will throw me back for weeks. My maid has been giving me red lavender ever since." Miss Davenal looked at her with a puzzled stare. "That is poison, is it not?" "What is poison?" "Red lead." "I said red lavender," cried Lady Oswald. "It is very good for the spirits: a few drops taken on a lump of sugar. Red lav-en-der." Miss Davenal resolutely shook her head. "Nasty stuff!" she cried. "Red lavender never did anybody good yet, Lady Oswald. Leave it off; leave it off." "I don't touch it once in a month in an ordinary way," screamed Lady Oswald. "Only when anything beyond common arises to flurry me." Miss Bettina stared at her. "What common is flooded? It is dry weather." Lady Oswald cast a helpless look at Sara. "Flurried, Aunt Bettina," said the young lady. "Lady Oswald said when she was flurried." Miss Bettina was not in the least grateful for the assistance. She pushed away her niece with her elbow. It was in fact next to high treason for Sara to attempt to assist Miss Davenal's deafness. "I should not allow things to flurry me, Lady Oswald. I never was flurried in my life." "Temperaments are constituted differently," returned Lady Oswald. "Temper!" cried Miss Davenal, as angrily as politeness would allow her, "what has temper to do with it? Who accuses me of temper?" "Tem-per-a-ment," corrected Lady Oswald, cracking her voice. "Sara, I _must_ go."