Mrs. Wilson was lying back in a deep chair, and she looked pale and ill. She roused herself to welcome Dorothy, and began to talk of the previous day’s happenings.
“Do you think I am like my father?” Dorothy asked, as soon as she could get Mrs. Wilson’s thoughts a little away from the forbidden subject.
“A little, but the likeness is more of manner than of feature. I suppose you take after your mother, for you are very nice looking, which your father never was.” Mrs. Wilson surveyed Dorothy with a critical air, seeming to be well pleased with her scrutiny.
Dorothy flushed an uncomfortable red; it looked as if she had been asking for compliments, whereas nothing had been farther from her thoughts.
“Tell me about my father, please,” she said hurriedly, intent on keeping the talk well away from recent happenings, yet anxious to avoid any further reference to her own looks.
“Oh, he was a wild one in those days!” Mrs. Wilson gurgled into sudden laughter at her remembrances. “Your father, his cousin Arthur Sedgewick, with Fred and Francis Bagnall, were about the most rackety set of young men it would be possible to find anywhere, I should think. By the way, where is Arthur Sedgewick now?”
Dorothy looked blank. “I do not think I have ever heard of him,” she answered slowly.
“Ah! then I expect he died many years ago, most likely before you were born. A wild one was Arthur Sedgewick. But your father ran him close, and the two Bagnalls were not far behind. I was rather in love with Fred Bagnall at the time, while he fairly adored the ground I walked upon. Ah me! I don’t think the girls of the present day get the whole-hearted devotion from their swains that used to fall to our lot. We should have made a match of it, I dare say, if I had not gone to Dublin for a winter and met Peter Wilson there. Oh, these little ifs, what a difference they make to our lives!”
Mrs. Wilson was interrupted at the moment by the entrance of the maid, who started to lay the table for tea.
“You need not stop to wait on us, Truscot,” said Mrs. Wilson, who already looked brighter and better from having some one to talk to. “Miss Sedgewick will pour out the tea for me, and you can get a little walk; you have had no chance of fresh air to-day.”