"When did you last see him?"
"Oh, about a fortnight ago."
"It was before that. He didn't tell you? Well, it's just like him, that is; that's Andrew all over!"
"What is?"
"He's engaged to Lilian. It's the first engagement in the family, and she's the youngest but one."
Helen shut the trunk with a snap, then opened it and shut it again. And then she rose, smoothing her hair.
"I scarcely know Lilian," she said, coldly. "And I don't know your mother at all. But I must call and congratulate the child. No, Andrew Dean didn't breathe a word."
"I may tell you as a dreadful secret, Nell, that we aren't any of us in the seventh heaven about it. Aunt Annie said yesterday: 'I don't know that I'm so set up with it as all that, Jane' (meaning mother). We aren't so set up with it as all that."
"Why not?"
"Oh, we aren't. I don't know why. I pretend to be, lest Lilian should imagine I'm jealous."