‘Don’t spoil the passing hour, child. I should think you would be glad enough to get away from it all.’
‘I do want to get on,’ said Constance. ‘I must, you know, more than ever now.’
‘Oh, you mean that mad fancy of going and being a teacher?’
‘It is not a bit mad, Herbert. Rose does not think it is, and I want you to stand by me if mamma and Ida make objections.’
‘Girls are always in such a hurry,’ grumbled Herbert. ‘You need not make a stir about it yet. You won’t be able to begin for ever so long.’
Rose agreed with him that it would be much wiser not to broach the subject till Constance was old enough to begin the preparation, though, with the impatience of youth to express its designs and give them form, she did not like the delay.
‘I tell you what, Con,’ finally said Herbert, ‘if you set mother and Ida worrying before their time, I shall vote it all rot, and not say a word to help you.’
Which disposed of the subject for the time, and left them to discuss happily Constance’s travels and Herbert’s new tutor and companions till their arrival at Westhaven, where Constance’s welcome was quite a secondary thing to Herbert’s, as she well knew it would be, nor felt it as a grievance, though she was somewhat amazed at seeing him fervently embraced, and absolutely cried over, with ‘Oh, my poor injured boy!’
Herbert did not like it at all, and disengaging
himself rapidly, growled out his favourite expletive of ‘Rot! Have done with that!’