‘I am not sorry to have found you alone. I want to hear something of these relations of yours.’
‘Oh! I shall be sure to say something wrong!’ thought she, and as the best thing to put forward, announced that they would soon be in London.
‘And they are not high with you? I hear fine accounts of their grandeur,—they say the lady and her daughter are eaten up with pride, and think no one fit to speak to.’
‘Miss Martindale has the plainest ways in the world. She will do anything for the poor people.’
‘Ay, ay, that’s the way with fine ladies,—they like to be condescending and affable. And so you say they receive you well? make you one of the family—eh?’
Violet hoped it was not wrong to utter a faint ‘yes.’
‘Does Martindale’s sister write to you?’
‘No; she does not write letters much. But I told you how very kind they are—Mr. Martindale, his brother, especially.’
‘Ay!’ said Albert, ‘he disconcerted our calculations. He seems to have taken out a new lease.’
‘He is a great deal better.’