In the Roar of the Sea by Sabine Baring-Gould

Author:Sabine Baring-Gould
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620136843
Publisher: Duke Classics

Chapter XXIX - On a Peacock's Feather

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As Mr. Menaida spoke, Miss Dionysia Trevisa entered, stiff, hard, and when her eyes fell on Judith, they contracted with an expression of antipathy. In the eyes alone was this observable, for her face was immovable.

"Auntie!" exclaimed Judith, drawing her into the sitting-room, and pressing her to take the arm chair.

"Oh, Auntie! I have so longed to see you—there have been some dreadful men here—doctors I think—and they have been teasing Jamie, till they had worked him into one of his temper fits."

"I sent them here, and for good reasons. Jamie is to go back to Wadebridge."

"No—indeed no! auntie! do not say that. You would not say it if you knew all."

"I know quite enough. More than is pleasing to me. I have heard of your outrageous and unbecoming conduct. Hoity! toity! To think that a Trevisa—but there you are one only in name—should go out at night, about the streets and lanes, like a common stray. Bless me! you might have knocked me down with a touch, when I was told of it."

"I did nothing outrageous and unbecoming, aunt. You may be sure of that. I am quite aware that I am a Trevisa, and a gentlewoman, and something higher than that, aunt—a Christian. My father never let me forget that."

"Your conduct was—well I will give it no expletive."

"Aunt, I did what was right. I was sure that Jamie was unhappy and wanted me. I cannot tell you how I knew it, but I was certain of it, and I had no peace till I went; and, as I found the garden door open, I went in, and as I went in I found Jamie locked up in the cellars, and I freed him. Had you found him there, you would have done the same."

"I have heard all about it. I want no repetition of a very scandalous story. Against my will I am burdened with an intolerable obligation, to look after an idiot nephew and a niece that is a self-willed and perverse Miss."

"Jamie is no idiot," answered Judith, firmly.

"Jamie is what those pronounce him to be, who by their age, their profession, and their inquiries are calculated to judge better than an ignorant girl, not out of her teens."

"Auntie I believe you have been misinformed. Listen to me, and I will tell you what happened. As for those men—"

"Those men were doctors. Perhaps they were misinformed when they went through the College of Surgeons, were misinformed by all the medical books they have read, were misdirected by all the study of the mental and bodily maladies of men they have made, in their professional course."

"I wish, dear Aunt Dionysia, you would take Jamie to be with you a few weeks, talk to him, play with him, go walks with him, and you will never say that he is an idiot. He needs careful management, and also a little application—"

"Enough of that theme," interrupted Miss Trevisa, "I have not come here to

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