'Rather!' exclaimed Cherry indignantly.
'That's what it is to be a handsome woman!' said Felix.
'Do you mean to say that you think her anything remarkable?' said Wilmet.
'Say no more, my dear W. W.,' laughed Felix. 'I never understood before why negroes don't admire white people.'
'I am sure I don't know what you are talking about,' said Wilmet, betaking herself to her darning with great good-humour. 'Alice Knevett is prettier than I thought she was when she was all tears and airs; but I can't see any remarkable beauty to rave about.'
'No, you can't,' said Geraldine merrily. 'You look much too high over her head, but you see I don't; and such a little sparkling diamond beetle is a real treat to me.'
And Geraldine often enjoyed the treat.
In a very short time the green door and steep stairs were as familiar to Alice as to the Underwoods themselves; for her aunts were thankful to have her happy and safe, and she was rapturously fond of Geraldine, reflecting and responding to most of her sentiments. Most of the Underwoods had the faculty of imprinting themselves upon the characters of their friends, by taking it for granted that they felt alike; and Alice Knevett had not spent six weeks at Bexley before she had come to think it incredible that she had thought either teaching or the Underwoods beneath her. She was taking pains to do her work well, and enjoying it, and was being moulded into a capital subordinate to Wilmet; while with Geraldine she read and talked over her books, obtained illustrations for the poetry she wrote out in her album, and brought in a wholesome air of chatter, which made Cherry much more girl-like than she had ever been before. It was an importation of something external, something lively and interesting, which was very refreshing to all; and even Felix, in his grave politeness and attention to his sister's friend, manifested that so far from being in his way, as they had feared, he found her a very agreeable element when she joined the home party or the Sunday walk.
Indeed, there was a certain tendency to expansion about the life of the young people; the pinch of poverty was less griping than previously, and their natural spirits rose. In January Lance was allowed to bring his friend Harewood to a concert of the choral society; and on the following evening Alice Knevett came to tea, and there was a series of wonderful charades, chiefly got up by Clement and Robina, and of comic songs by Lance and Bill Harewood—all with such success, that Alice declared that she had never seen anything so delightful in all her experience of London Christmases!
The young people really seemed to have recovered elasticity enough that year to think of modest treats and holidays as they had never ventured to do since that memorable sixteenth birth-day of Felix's. Here was his twenty-first not very far off; and when it was announced that this identical 3rd of July had been fixed on for a grand choral meeting at the Cathedral, at which the choir of Bexley was to assist, there was such a spirit of enterprise abroad in the family, that Geraldine suggested that Wilmet might take Robina to see the Cathedral and hear Lance.