"It's a very poor world that goes round upon my pivot," said Mrs. Trevelyan.
"I don't know how this quarrel came up," exclaimed Priscilla, "and I don't care to know. But it seems a trumpery quarrel,—as to who should beg each other's pardon first, and all that kind of thing. Sheer and simple nonsense! Ask him to let it all be forgotten. I suppose he loves you?"
"How can I know? He did once."
"And you love him?"
"Yes. I love him certainly."
"I don't see how you can have a doubt. Here is Jack with the carriage, and if we don't mind he'll pass us by without seeing us."
Then Mrs. Trevelyan got up, and when they had succeeded in diverting Jack's attention for a moment from the horse, they called to Nora, who was still moving about from one knoll to another, and who showed no desire to abandon the contemplations in which she had been engaged.
It had been mid-day before they left home in the morning, and they were due to be at home in time for tea,—which is an epoch in the day generally allowed to be more elastic than some others. When Mrs. Stanbury lived in the cottage her hour for tea had been six; this had been stretched to half-past seven when she received Mrs. Trevelyan at the Clock House; and it was half-past eight before Jack landed them at their door. It was manifest to them all as they entered the house that there was an air of mystery in the face of the girl who had opened the door for them. She did not speak, however, till they were all within the passage. Then she uttered a few words very solemnly. "There be a gentleman come," she said.
"A gentleman!" said Mrs. Trevelyan, thinking in the first moment of her husband, and in the second of Colonel Osborne.
"He be for you, miss," said the girl, bobbing her head at Nora.