"Oh, but you know what I mean? I don't mean that, of course—mother isn't rich either, because she's lost all her money, and that's why we've come to live here; but she isn't a poor person, of course, don't you understand? What makes you look as if you had been crying? Grown-up people oughtn't to cry about nothing, mother says, because it makes them ugly—only you are not ugly. I mean to tell Uncle Harvey. I like you ever so much the best. The other looks like Aunt Julia when Aunt Julia is cross."
"Hush, you must not speak so," Marjory said hastily. But Hermione did not seem to hear the utterances. She was standing as if lost in thought.
"Impossible!" she said aloud. "He could never intend such a thing without consulting me."
"Don't you think you ought to go? I had better say good-bye," suggested Marjory.
"If you must. Yes, I have to go in; but—" Hermione faltered, looking at the child. Should she question Mittie? No, she could not stoop to that. Harvey, and Harvey alone, must answer for himself.
"Come to live here!" Those four words rang in Hermione's ears as she turned towards the house, forgetting even to respond to Marjory's good-bye. Mittie stayed behind, to pursue her new acquaintance through the garden, and Hermione entered the conservatory alone.
At the drawing-room door she paused, partly to observe, partly to rally her powers of self-command. For all in a moment it rushed over her how great a change had come in her life.
A tall lady-like girl, handsomely dressed, stood in the bow-window, studying the view. Hand-bags and small packages lay about the room, and Slade with his usual cautious air was carrying something away, it did not matter what. Hermione caught the tone of his assenting "Yes, sir," in mild response to an evident order from Harvey, who stood near the fireplace, with the air of one taking possession, albeit in his usual insouciant and gentlemanly style. A smaller and plumper individual than Julia—somehow Hermione knew at once which was Julia, though the widow's attire was by no means strongly marked as such—had thrown herself into Hermione's own especial easy-chair, and was remarking in distinct tones—
"Rather comical, isn't it, to desert the premises, and give nobody a welcome? But I suppose one may expect a certain rusticity of manners here. My dear Julia, I don't know what your sensations may be, but I am dying for a cup of tea. Do pray ring and order it. That man is a very embodiment of slowness; he will be an hour at least carrying up the tray. Yes, pray ring, Harvey; thanks. And this is the drawing-room! Not a badly-shaped room on the whole,—quite capable of being made pretty. Of course there is no sort of arrangement now. Everything seems to have been plumped down once for all exactly where it stands, and left there for twenty years. Not a vase that hasn't its exact match on the other side—and the way those curtains are draped is antediluvian, to say the least. I'm not sure that it isn't pre-Adamite. As for that row of chairs, with their backs against the wall, they are enough to give one the nightmare. Nous allons changer tout cela, I suppose, and the sooner the better."
"Francesca!" her brother-in-law uttered, in a warning undertone. He had caught sight of Hermione standing in the conservatory doorway, and he went forward to meet her, not without some secret embarrassment, but with a kind brotherliness of demeanour. For he wanted very much to make Hermione happy. He had set his heart on doing all that he possibly could to repay her for what she was losing, short of adequate money-repayment. He did not of course allow that she was a wronged individual, or that she had any actual claim upon him. He had reasoned himself by this time into looking upon the £20,000 settlement as an absolutely preposterous notion. It seemed to him a doubtful matter whether the estate would stand the strain of losing even half of that sum; and after all he was, legally, free to do or not to do exactly as he chose. Still there was a distinct wish to "make up" to Hermione for something—he did not define what!