“But she would not have refused to see us a year ago when she was ill,” I said.
“No, that is different now. Churton remarked again how fond Aunt Briscoe is of Maimie; and Maimie said, 'Yes, she has given me a welcome.’”
“Go on, please,” Jack said breathlessly.
“I am afraid there is not much more to tell,” my husband said. “We were under a good deal of constraint. Churton presently told Maimie she had better go back to Aunt Briscoe, and Maimie stood up at once. She seems curiously submissive to him.”
“Did she mind going?” I asked.
She clung to me again, and shed a few tears. I went with her to the door, and there she threw herself into my arms, and whispered a good-bye. I had a little chat with Churton after she was gone, and said I hoped she would come and see us soon. He said he could not promise it yet,—he did not like incessant running backwards and forwards between two families. I reminded him that Maimie was like one of ourselves by this time. He frowned, and said she was not that, and added that he hoped by-and-by to be able to repay me for all her expenses while with us.
“Nonsense!” muttered Jack.
“Then we spoke of Maimie herself, and of her prettiness and taking ways. Churton was fluent enough there—only he talked too much as one might talk of the good points of a horse, counting on its marketable value.”
Jack groaned.
“Maimie will not be easily swayed to do what she does not think right,” I said, responding to what I felt was in Jack’s mind.