Chapter XXV
"The Van Antwerps have come up for the summer," said Miss Joanna, who had made the same announcement, if you remember, not quite a year before. "The butcher says they came last night. They never got here so early before."
Elizabeth, who was arranging flowers, looked up suddenly. "Yes, I know," she said, quietly, "Eleanor wrote me." She left her roses half arranged, and wandered restlessly over to the long French window. Before her stretched the well-kept lawn, with its flower-beds and rose-bushes and beyond, field and wooded upland, all clothed in their newest, most vivid dress of green; further still the river, with the white sails on its surface—that river from which, more than half a century before, another Elizabeth Van Vorst had resolutely turned away her eyes, refusing to be reminded of the life that she had given up. But that woman of an older generation was made of sterner stuff, perhaps, than her grand-daughter. And then there was not much travel in those days, no daily mails, no guests coming up to neighboring house-parties over Sunday.... "It will be nice for you, Elizabeth, to have Mrs. Bobby," said Aunt Joanna, in her comfortable monotone, her knitting-needles clicking peacefully. "You have found it a little dull, you know, dear, since you came back."
A little dull! Elizabeth could have laughed out loud at the words. A little dull—with such exciting subjects to discuss as the new Easter anthem, and the latest illness of the Rectory children; with such diversions as a drive to Bassett Mills, a tea-party at the Courtenays! ...
"If I am dull," she said, turning round presently with the ghost of a smile "It certainly isn't the fault of the Neighborhood. I didn't tell you that Mrs. Courtenay has asked me to tea—a third time. She says 'Frank will see me home—no need to send the carriage.'" She laughed a little, not without a shade of bitterness. "Fancy Mrs. Courtenay suggesting that—last summer!"
"Well, dear, she means well, I suppose," said Miss Joanna, puzzled but kindly. Miss Cornelia raised her head with a little, involuntary touch of pride.
"The Courtenays are—are really quite pushing, I think," she said, a most unwonted tone of asperity in her voice. "I told Mrs. Courtenay, Elizabeth, that you had been so very gay"—with emphasis—"you really needed a complete rest."
Elizabeth laughed. "And of course," she said "that only made her—dear good woman!—all the more anxious to provide me with a little more amusement. I never realized before how fond the girls have always been of me. But then that's the case, apparently with the whole Neighborhood. They always concealed their affection for me very successfully—until this spring!"