But--well," in a hurried outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns wasn't.

I do wish it, I tell you that." "Good Lord!" cried Mrs.Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip.
She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic view of any case offering her an opening in that direction.
"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they'd try to take her life ?" "Goodness, no!" ejaculated Jane, with even a trifle of impatience.
"People like them daren't.

But suppose they was to try to, well, to upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be." After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers, Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother's.

They sat knee to knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness.

She was so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady.
"At all events," was Mrs.Cupp's weighty observation when their conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there's things to be looked out for." Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah's, and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native woman knew that she was being remarked, she gave no sign of her knowledge.