“I told Mr. Ellerton the whole story, and he seemed positively astonished.”
“And Miss Bellairs admitted that when she wrote she considered such a tiling utterly impossible. She’s changed a little, Mary. She’s not so cheerful and light-hearted as she used to be.”
“Think what she’s gone through. I’ve noticed just the same in Mr. Ellerton, but—”
“You hope to restore him soon?”
“Oh, well, I expect Miss Bellairs—what a pretty girl she is, John—will soon revive too, now she is with you again. John, have; you observed anything peculiar in Aunt Sarah’s manner?”
“To tell you the truth, I fancied she was rather short with me once or twice at dinner.”
“I believe she is—isn’t pleased at—at what’s happened. She hasn’t taken much to Mr. Ellerton, and you know she liked you so much, that I think she still wants you as one of the family.”
John laughed: then he leant forward and said in a low voice:
“Have you settled anything about dates?”
“No. Mr. Ellerton—well he didn’t introduce the subject: so of course I didn’t. Have you?”