"I'm sure you did," murmured Auntie Hamps.
"I should think so, indeed!" murmured Clara, seeking to disguise her constraint by attentions to the sleeping Rupert.
"Is Edwin thinking of buying, then?" Albert asked Hilda in a quiet, studiously careless voice.
"We've discussed it," responded Hilda.
"Because if he is, he ought to take it over at the price Mag took it at. She oughtn't to lose on it. That's only fair."
"I'm sure Edwin would never do anything unfair," said Auntie Hamps.
Hilda made no reply. She had already heard the argument from Edwin, and Albert now seemed to her more tedious and unprincipled than usual. Her reason admitted the force of the argument as regards Maggie, but instinct opposed it.
Nevertheless she was conscious of sudden sympathy for Maggie, and of a weakening of her prejudice against her.
"Hadn't we better be going, Auntie?" Maggie curtly and reproachfully suggested. "You know quite well that jam stands a good chance of being ruined."
"I suppose we had," Auntie Hamps concurred with a sigh, and rose.