‘Can’t help it,’ said Herbert. ‘The old fellow would be well enough if he had any go in him.’
‘I am sure he took you out hunting,’ exclaimed Constance indignantly, ‘the day they took us to the meet. And he leapt all the ditches when you—’
He broke in, ‘Well, what was I to do when I’ve never had the chance to learn to sit a horse? You’ll see next winter.’
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ asked Rose, rather mischievously.
To which Herbert turned a deaf ear and began to expatiate upon the game of Northmoor, till other sounds led him away to fall upon the other tête-à-tête between Ida and Sibyl Grover. In Ida’s mind the honours of Northmoor were dearly purchased by the dulness and strictness of the life there.
‘My uncle was as cross as two sticks if ever Herbert or I were too late for prayers, and he said it was nonsense of Herbert to say that kneeling at church spoilt his trousers—kneeling just like a school child! It made me so faint!’
‘And it looks so!’
‘I tried, because Lady Adela and Miss Bertha and all do,’ said Ida, ‘and they looked at me! But it made me faint, as I knew it would,’ and she put her head on one side.
‘Poor dear! So they were so very religious! Did that spoil it all?’
‘Well, we had pretty things off the Christmas-tree, and we lived quite as ladies, and drove out in the carriage.’