“MRS. HESKETH comes to-morrow,” her mother announced to Cara, as she folded up a letter. “I’m so glad, aren’t you?”
“Comme ca!” she rejoined with a shrug. “Moi je n’aime pas les antiquities!”
“Oh, Cara! and she has always been so kind, and generous to you.”
“And why not? I am her goddaughter, the child of her greatest friend. She has no one belonging to her, and heaps of money. If she is so rich and so fond of you, Mum, why does she let you board in a Swiss farm-house, with barely enough money to pay for pension, and work hard to make up the rest? She ought to have us to live with her!”
“She would gladly—she has often invited us, but I’ve refused. I cannot live on anyone, I must be independent.”
“Then you and I differ, Mum. I am ready to live on anyone who will give me a good time!”
“Dear child, you are only joking, but for goodness’ sake don’t say such things before Mrs. Hesketh. She might think you were serious.”
Mrs. Hesketh was visibly changed and aged; her hair was grey, her step languid, her eyes, however, still held their old fire.
The evening after her arrival, she and Letty sat in the window of her sitting-room at the Paradis, which overlooked the lake.