"Oh yes! it isn't that, but I hate paying calls, and I promised the boys to walk to Fulverton. Captain Harper said he'd meet us and show us a squirrel's nest he's found. Suppose you go and call with Mother instead of me?"
Avelyn gasped. Such unselfishness took away her breath.
"Do you really mean you'll let me go instead of you?"
"With all the pleasure in life, child, if you want to." Daphne's manner was airy and elder-sisterly. "Of course it's nothing to me whether we meet Captain Harper or not, only he made rather a point about it, and perhaps it would seem—well, rude, if I let the boys go without me. He's been very kind to David and Tony, and one doesn't like to hurt his feelings."
Two things swept across Avelyn's bewildered consciousness: first, that Daphne was growing up—growing up most suddenly and unmistakably; and secondly, that she had resigned her privilege, as elder daughter, to call on the Lavender Lady. The first would have to be considered at leisure, in all its bearings and side issues; the second was for the moment uppermost.
"Go and ask Mother what you're to put on," said Daphne, as if the whole question of the exchange were settled.
It was an outwardly calm and self-possessed, but inwardly much-agitated Avelyn who entered, in her mother's wake, into the little drawing-room at the bungalow. One comprehensive glance took in the fact that the room was utterly different from what it had been during the curate's occupation. There were books and flowers, and other pretty things about. The general tone had changed from commonplace to artistic. On the window-sill lay a half-finished sketch of the village. There was music on the open piano. But these details faded into secondary consideration, for the Lavender Lady was entering, in the soft heliotrope gown, with a sprig of wallflower pinned into the lace fichu.
Occasionally in our lives we meet with people whose whole electric atmosphere seems to merge and blend with our own. We feel we are not so much making a new acquaintance as picking up the lost threads of some former soul-friendship. Avelyn experienced thrills as she shook hands. She was far too shy to say much, but she sat and listened rapturously while her mother and Miss Carrington did the talking. For the present it was enough to be in the vicinity of her goddess. The maid brought in tea. There were a dainty, open-hem-stitched Teneriffe cloth, Queen Anne silver teapot and Apostle teaspoons, and scones and honey. A bowl of primroses and forget-me-nots was on the table.
The half-hour's visit passed like a dream.
"You'll come and see me again, dear, won't you?" said Miss Carrington, as she held Avelyn's hand in good-bye.