Come and kiss your
aunt, darling.
ELLIE. I'm only a visitor. It is my luggage on the steps.
NURSE GUINNESS. I'll go get you some fresh tea, ducky. [She takes
up the tray].
ELLIE. But the old gentleman said he would make some himself.
NURSE GUINNESS. Bless you! he's forgotten what he went for
already. His mind wanders from one thing to another.
LADY UTTERWORD. Papa, I suppose?
NURSE GUINNESS. Yes, Miss.
LADY UTTERWORD [vehemently]. Don't be silly, Nurse. Don't call me
Miss.
NURSE GUINNESS [placidly]. No, lovey [she goes out with the
tea-tray].
LADY UTTERWORD [sitting down with a flounce on the sofa]. I know
what you must feel. Oh, this house, this house! I come back to it
after twenty-three years; and it is just the same: the luggage
lying on the steps, the servants spoilt and impossible, nobody at
home to receive anybody, no regular meals, nobody ever hungry
because they are always gnawing bread and butter or munching
apples, and, what is worse, the same disorder in ideas, in talk,
in feeling. When I was a child I was used to it: I had never
known anything better, though I was unhappy, and longed all the
time--oh, how I longed!--to be respectable, to be a lady, to live
as others did, not to have to think of everything for myself.
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