She sat between Mrs. Best and Magdalen; and in the first pause, when the first course had just been distributed, she looked up with a great pair of grey eyes, and asked, in a shrill, clear little voice, “Sister, may I have a bicycle?”
“We will see about it, my dear,” returned Magdalen, unwilling to pledge herself.
“But haven’t you got a fortune?” undauntedly demanded Thekla.
“Something like it, Thekla. You shall hear about it after dinner.” And Magdalen felt her colour flushing up under all those young eyes.
“Kitty Best said—”
But here Mrs. Best interposed. “We don’t talk over such things at table, Thekla. Take care with the gravy. Did Mr. Jones give a lesson, this morning?”
“Yes, a very long one,” said Vera.
“It was about the exact force of the words in the Revised Version,” added Agatha, “compared with the Greek.”
“That must have been very interesting!” said Magdalen.
Vera and her neighbour looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders; while some one else broke in with the news that another girl had not come back because she was down with influenza; and Magdalen, suspecting that “shop” was not talked at table, and also that the Scripture passage could not well be discussed there, saw that it was wise to let the conversation drift off, by Mrs. Best’s leading, into anecdotes of the influenza.