Wix should stand
up. Maisie at once enquired if at Brighton, this time, anything had
come of the possibility of a school; to which, much to her surprise,
Miss Overmore, who had always grandly repudiated it, replied after an
instant, but quite as if Mrs. Wix were not there:
"It may be, darling, that something WILL come. The objection, I must
tell you, has been quite removed."
At this it was still more startling to hear Mrs. Wix speak out with
great firmness. "I don't think, if you'll allow me to say so, that
there's any arrangement by which the objection CAN be 'removed.' What
has brought me here to-day is that I've a message for Maisie from dear
Mrs. Farange."
The child's heart gave a great thump. "Oh mamma's come back?"
"Not yet, sweet love, but she's coming," said Mrs. Wix, "and she
has--most thoughtfully, you know--sent me on to prepare you."
"To prepare her for what, pray?" asked Miss Overmore, whose first
smoothness began, with this news, to be ruffled.
Mrs. Wix quietly applied her straighteners to Miss Overmore's flushed
beauty. "Well, miss, for a very important communication."
"Can't dear Mrs. Farange, as you so oddly call her, make her
communications directly? Can't she take the trouble to write to her only
daughter?" the younger lady demanded. "Maisie herself will tell you that
it's months and months since she has had so much as a word from her."
"Oh but I've written to mamma!" cried the child as if this would do
quite as well.
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