“That’s principally why,” said Joan.
“Mother doesn’t much care for Mrs. St. John,” said Nessie. “She thinks her proud and cold. But sometimes people are called so when they are shy.”
“At all events we don’t mean to call on Mrs. St. John now,” said Joan, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, and a rapid movement of her eyebrows. “I’d rather be excused, and so I dare say would you. Come, we shall have to step out well, Nessie. It is a good way round—seven or eight miles altogether. What a pity father didn’t come with us?”
“Why didn’t he?”
“Mother wanted him for something. Those clouds look rather suspicious for by-and-by; but it won’t rain yet. I’d have brought my umbrella if I had noticed them.”
The red house of which Joan had spoken was well shaded with tall trees. A rather small drawing-room stood on one side of the front door, and in this drawing-room sat two ladies, working or making believe to work, and talking without any make-believe. Both were well advanced in years: the elder, Mrs. St. John, about seventy-five, the other only some ten or twelve years her junior. And while Mrs. St. John, a slender, upright little body, with white hair, and sharp eyes, and mittened hands, expressed her thoughts with a clear and resolute utterance, the other lady seemed too listless and depressed for ought but deliberation, and even slowness. She was very sweet-faced, this second occupant of the room, but there was a look of premature age about her stooping figure and faded complexion. A careless observer might almost have mistaken her for the senior of the two.
“The fact is my dear Amelia,” Mrs. St. John was saying—“the fact is, you always were given to rather distorted views of your duty. And this is a case in point.”
She spoke with the freedom of a sister, yet the ladies were not sisters, or even relatives, but only old school-friends.
“I do not feel any doubt as to what my duty would be, if it were not for my husband’s wishes,” the other answered in her spiritless manner. “But, feeling as he does—”
“Knowing him to feel as he does, your course of action is quite clear,” said Mrs. St. John decisively.