Mrs. Grant sighed. "I shouldn't be a mother if I hadn't thought of that," she said. "And Jane will be quite as pretty as Lady Sidney when she grows up. But Harry is so sweet and natural with the children that it would be a pity to spoil it by thinking of something that would make it all quite different. He wouldn't be what he is if he were to think of Jane as anything but a child, for some years yet."
"I think you're right," said her husband. "Of course I've built a few castles in the air. I shouldn't be a father if I hadn't. But I expect he'll marry young; he seems to me that sort of boy, somehow. I don't think he could do better than marry Lady Sidney. She's very interested in the idea of him. She talked to me a lot about the time they used to play together as children."
"She said she'd come down to-morrow morning. I think she wants to get away from Mrs. Brent, though I shouldn't wonder if Mrs. Brent came with her. I think she wants to show me as many of her new clothes as possible. She hasn't improved up in London. I don't like her nearly as much as I did."
"I never cared for her much," said Grant. "She's a common little thing, however she may dress herself up to disguise it. I've sometimes wondered what Harry will think about her when he does come home."
Lady Sidney came down to the Vicarage the next morning, and Mrs. Brent came with her, as Mrs. Grant had anticipated. But apparently they each wanted to get rid of the other, for directly Mrs. Brent had greeted Mrs. Grant she said: "I want to have a long talk alone with you. I wonder if you'd spare Jane from her lessons to show Lady Sidney the log cabin that Harry built with the children. I've been telling her about it and she said she'd like to see it."
Sidney laughed. "I don't want to be in the way," she said, "and I'd like to have a walk with Jane, if she can be spared."
Jane was fetched. She received Mrs. Brent's effusive greeting with unsmiling coolness and looked Sidney over very critically when she was introduced to her. The inspection was apparently satisfactory, for she went off with some alacrity to change her shoes; but that may have been because she was relieved at getting off the rest of the morning's lessons.
The two girls set out across the garden, where the Vicarage baby, now getting on for three, was asleep under a tree, as before. They stopped to look at it, and Sidney behaved in such a way as to give Jane a good opinion of her. "She's a darling," she said, as they went on. "I do hope she'll be awake when we come back. I love to hear them talk at that age, don't you?"
Jane said she did, and recounted specimens of the Vicarage baby's wit, over which they both laughed freely. They were good friends by the time they reached the log cabin.
Jane unlocked the door and waited for admiration, which was given. "I've kept it very tidy and clean ever since Harry went away," she said, looking solemnly at Sidney. "I hope he won't have got too old to like it. He wrote to me, you know, to say he was coming back, and he mentioned the log cabin. I expect he'll be pleased to see it again."