"I tell you he does not dream of Dolly. How can you imagine anything so absurd?"
That was how the family tyrant addressed her mother, and poor Mrs. Rhodes was, as ever, annihilated. It was a vain thing to try and brave Georgiana. There she stood in the window, majestic, the eldest daughter, her straight hair stiffly ridged with hot irons, her face pale, and her lips determined, altogether handsome, but very hard. Behind her one had a glimpse of a forlorn little figure wandering in the grass. The sight of that lonely figure, and a dim idea of its unhappiness, made the poor lady pluck up spirit to murmur still—
"I—I—I thought that Freddy——"
"Impossible!" said Georgiana; her voice vibrated with a little more than disdain. "Why, what could he see in a stupid little goose like that? It would be cheaper to buy a sixpenny doll and set it up in his house; then at least he could always change it. But if he wants a wife——"
In the garden Dolly was walking rather sadly among the trees, and her white skirts brushed against the grass like a sigh. She was a little slip of a thing with Irish eyes, great and grey, always brimming with either a laugh or tears; and she had the dearest eager face in the world. It was a troubled face now, for she could not understand why life had been made bitter to her just lately. Perhaps it was because of some unwitting sin, perhaps because the family tyrant felt, like her, the approaching parting with their old playfellow. Georgiana had a peculiar way of showing when she was vexed.
The Rev. Frederick Cockburn had not always been six feet high and a parson. And for the greater part of their lives they had only been parted by a garden wall. Even when he was at college he was continually running down, and they had never made a plan without him; he belonged to the girls like a brother. Later he had had to admonish them as a curate, but he had been their old comrade still. Of course, he was lucky to get a living offered to him so young, and it was only right that he should accept it, but still it was a blow.
Freddy had run in so often to talk it over (the girls knew all about his house and his parish, down to the woman who played the harmonium and dragged the chants) that they had forgotten it was so far away. Now they had suddenly to remember.
Dolly was under the weeping ash, where she and Freddy had hidden when they were little. Georgiana had had the biggest bite of the apple, and then she had deserted and said, "I'll tell!" How she would miss him! Always he had been her champion, defending her when Georgiana was angry and pulled her hair. And although these days were past she wanted him more than ever. It had hurt her lately that he should have been monopolised by Georgiana and that she had been thrust back and made a third. He was a young housekeeper, and the eldest daughter could talk of carpets and curtains and butcher's bills. To Dolly life was a weary nightmare of Freddy serious in a chair, and Georgiana giving him good advice. Vainly she tried to keep her lip steady, leaning her head in among the leaves.
Half a mile away a black object was sitting on a fence whistling impatiently, inwardly furious with Georgiana.