Lady Kirkbank insisted upon it; and both Lesbia and Lady Kirkbank upbraided Lady Maulevrier for her cruelty in not joining them at Cannes.
So Lady Maulevrier had to resign herself to that solitude which had become almost the habit of her life, and to the society of Mary and the Fraeulein.

Mary was eager to be of use, to sit with her grandmother, to read to her, to write for her.

The warm young heart was deeply moved by the spectacle of this stately woman stricken into helplessness, chained to her couch, immured within four walls.

To Mary, who so loved the hills and the streams, the sun and the wind, this imprisonment seemed unspeakable woe.

In her pity for such a martyrdom she would have done anything to give pleasure or solace to her grandmother.