“I think you might have told me at the time,” she had said, “instead of letting me run on with all sorts of local gossip as you did.”
“Why? Oh, I see. But you didn’t abuse us a bit more than we deserve. I asked you a question and you answered it. And, between ourselves, the answer didn’t surprise me in the very least.”
“That’s all very well, but you ought to have stopped me.”
“How hard-hearted you are, when all the others have forgiven me!”
“Have they? Oh, well, then, for the credit of the family I suppose I must exercise the same Christian virtue,” had said Olive mischievously. “You may consider yourself forgiven by me too. There.”
“One thing more,” he had urged, “is wanted to make that forgiveness complete. You must continue to mete me out the same treatment as you did to the stranger, Rowlands; not categorise me as an obnoxious Dorrien.”
“That will depend entirely upon your future behaviour,” she had returned, with the same mischievous flash.
The lake was barely five minutes’ walk from the house, and as the two—the three, rather, for Roy, all the fresher for his ducking, was trotting along at their side—turned the corner of the garden walk, they came face to face with their mother and two young ladies, who were speedily introduced as the Miss Nevilles.
“We’ve been in the coolest corner of the county all the morning—on the water,” said Roland, catching his mother’s displeased glance at his sister. “Nellie wanted to go indoors half an hour ago, but I positively refused to let her land.”
“What a beautiful dog! Is it yours, Mr Dorrien?” said the eldest.