'You'll take care of her,' he said, with the solicitude that fathers never lose for their youngest daughter. 'You have no young lords nor precipices to put in her way, I trust.'
'Lords, precipices, and thunder-storms, are equally improbable just now,' said Cherry; 'the tithe-dinner and school-treat are the most brilliant entertainments in prospect.'
'I shall tell her to mind you like an Ethel the second. By-the-by, Ethel says she never saw any one so good for the child. She was our spoilt one—at least, so Ethel says; though I'm an old fool of a father, and never saw it, and you are said to have put the womanliness into her.'
'I'm afraid I don't deserve the compliment. "I speks it growed."'
'To tell the truth, so do I,' laughed the Doctor.
Geraldine in her secret soul thought the development in maidenliness due to something besides age, for she knew what was the great bond between herself and Gertrude May; and bethinking herself of the entire extinction of all remaining sentiment for Alice Knevett, she could not but speculate on the possible results of the coming visit, and recollect that to shrink from them would have no such excuse as in the former case.
The announcement was not received with acclamation. Angela did not like Gertrude May. Both were high-spirited free-spoken unconventional girls, in whom something of womanly grace was as yet slow in coming; but Gertrude was more essentially a lady, though louder voiced and less naturally graceful; nor had she a particle of flirtation, but disliked young men, and was unpopular from irony and exclusiveness; whereas Angela was thoroughly the girl of the period in a highly stimulated state.
'Bother!' she exclaimed. 'She is nearly as bad as Miss May herself.'
'Indeed!' said Felix, in a much offended voice.
'As good then, and that's as bad!'