“And, my dear, may I stay a few minutes? I think we had better have a talk, and quite understand one another.”
“Very well.”
It was not quite encouraging, but Agatha really wished to hear, and she advanced a wicker chair for her elder sister, and sat down on the window seat.
“Thank you, my dear; I do not know how much Mrs. Best has told you.”
“She told us that you had always been very good to us, and that you had been our guardian ever since we lost our mother.”
“Did she tell you what we have of our own that our father could leave us?”
“No.”
“What amounts to about £40 a year apiece. Mrs. Best in her very great goodness has taken you four for that amount, though her proper charge is eighty.”
“And she never let any one guess it,” said Agatha, more warmly, “for fear we might feel the difference. How very good of her.”
She seemed more impressed by Mrs. Best’s bounty than by Magdalen’s, but probably she took the latter as a matter of course and obligation; besides, the sense of it involved a sum in subtraction. However, this was not observed by her sister, who did not want to feel obliged.