“No; a friend of Aunt Bella’s found him.”
“A woman friend?”
“Yes; she gave him an excellent character.”
“And what of hers?”
“Oh, my dear Kathleen, she is Lady Kesters, a tremendously smart Society lady, awfully clever, too, and absolutely sans reproche!”
“Is that so?” drawled Mrs. Ramsay. “Well, somehow or other, I’ve an uneasy feeling about her protégé. There is more than meets the eye with respect to that young man’s character, believe me. My woman’s instinct says so. I’m sorry he has come down and taken up your aunt’s situation, for I seem to feel in me bones that he will bring trouble to some one.”
“Oh, Kathleen! You and your Irish superstitions!” and Aurea threw up her hands, clasping them among her masses of hair, and stared into her friend’s face and laughed.
“Well, dear, if he does nothing worse, he will have half the girls in love with him, and breaking their hearts. It’s too bad of him, so good-looking, and so smart, coming and throwing the ‘comether’ over this sleepy little village. Believe me, darlin’, he has been turned out of his own place; and it would never surprise me if he was just a nice-looking young wolf in sheep’s clothing!”
“Oh, what it is to have the nice, lurid, Celtic imagination!” exclaimed Aurea. “I don’t think the poor man would harm a fly. Joss has taken to him as a brother—and——”
“Miss Morven as—a sister?”