“Why, it is not a correspondence much in my line,” said Flora, laughing.
“Ah! but you are so intimate with Dr. Hoxton, and your brothers at Oxford! You must know—”
“I’ll take advice,” said Flora good-naturedly. “Shall I come, and call before Friday, and tell you the result?”
“Oh, pray! It will be a real favour! Good-morning—”
“There,” said Flora, as the sisters turned homewards, “Cherry is not going to be turned out just yet!”
“How could you, Flora? Now they will have that man from Whitford, and you said not a word against it!”
“What was the use of adding to the hubbub? A little opposition would make them determined on having him. You will see, Ethel, we shall get the ground on our own terms, and then it will be time to settle about the mistress. If the harvest holidays were not over, we would try to send Cherry to a training-school, so as to leave them no excuse.”
“I hate all this management and contrivance. It would be more honest to speak our minds, and not pretend to agree with them.”
“My dear Ethel! have I spoken a word contrary to my opinion? It is not fit for me, a girl of twenty, to go disputing and dragooning as you would have me; but a little savoir faire, a grain of common sense, thrown in among the babble, always works. Don’t you remember how Mrs. Ward’s sister told us that a whole crowd of tottering Chinese ladies would lean on her, because they felt her firm support, though it was out of sight?”
Ethel did not answer; she had self-control enough left not to retort upon Flora’s estimate of herself, but the irritation was strong; she felt as if her cherished views for Cocksmoor were insulted, as well as set aside, by the place being made the occasion of so much folly and vain prattle, the sanctity of her vision of self-devotion destroyed by such interference, and Flora’s promises did not reassure her. She doubted Flora’s power, and had still more repugnance to the means by which her sister tried to govern; they did not seem to her straightforward, and she could not endure Flora’s complacency in their success. Had it not been for her real love for the place and people, as well as the principle which prompted that love, she could have found it in her heart to throw up all concern with it, rather than become a fellow-worker with such a conclave.