'Do you call that pitying you?'
'Worse,' said Isabel, smiling.
'Well, then, what I came for was to ask if you can put on your bonnet, and take a walk in the lanes this lovely evening.'
A walk was a rare treat to the busy mother, and, with a look of delight, she consented to leave her mending and her children to Charlotte. There seldom were two happier beings than that pair, as they wandered slowly, arm-in-arm, in the deep green lanes, in the summer twilight, talking sometimes of the present, sometimes of the future, but with the desultory, vague speculation of those who feared little because they knew how little there was to fear.
'It is well they are all girls,' said James, speaking of that constant topic, the children; 'we can manage their education pretty well, I flatter myself, by the help of poor Clara's finishing governess, as Louis used to call you.'
'If the edge of my attainments be not quite rusted off. Meantime, you teach Kitty, and I teach nothing.'
'You don't lose your singing. Your voice never used to be so sweet.'
'It keeps the children good. But you should have seen Kitty chaunting 'Edwin and Angelina' to the twins this morning, and getting up an imitation of crying at 'turn Angelina, ever dear,' because, she said, Charlotte always did.'
'That is worth writing to tell Fitzjocelyn! It will be a great disappointment if they have to stay abroad all this winter; but he seems to think it the only chance of his father getting thoroughly well, so I suppose there is little hope of him. I should like for him to see Kitty as she is now, she is so excessively droll!'
'Yes; and it must be a great deprivation to have to leave all his farm to itself, just as it is looking so well; only he makes himself happy with whatever he is doing.'