XXXVIIThe first thing that Miss Carstairs said when they were left alone was a challenge to Anne’s self-possession. She sat there, her hands crossed on the crutch of her stick and her head on one side.
“Well?” she said, “What do you make of me? Do I eat the young, or don’t I?”
Anne found herself laughing.
“I don’t think you do.”
“Oh, well, if I try you can always walk out, can’t you? How do you get on with Elizabeth? And don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean—but call her Lizabet I will not. It’s not her name, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Was she christened Elizabeth?”
“She was. And what’s wrong with that, I ask you. Lizabet’s rubbish! When she comes here she gets her christian name, and that’s Elizabeth, after my poor cousin that was her mother. You didn’t know her?”
“No.”
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