'What engagement?'
'To Will Harewood.'
'My dear Felix, you don't mean that you have consented to anything so foolish! How are they to live?'
'They have been for the last four years endeavouring to save. He makes a good deal by his pupils, and by his writings, besides his fellowship, and she adds something from her salary. They mean to get £5000 together between them—her salary, and his fellowship, pupils and books—and then take either a parish or a mastership at a school.'
'It seems to me sheer imprudence,' said the old Alda, half peevish at the opposition; 'I did think she might have been glad to leave strangers for the sake of her sister, and her natural position.'
'You forget the difference the salary makes to her prospects. She has £150 a year, and it would not be right to ask her to give it up, considering——'
'I can't see why my children should be sacrificed to William Harewood!'
'Perhaps not, but Robina might. No, Alda, it will not do. The De la Poers have made her so happy that she feels Repworth another home, and I should not like to ask her to leave it till she marries.'
'It is hard,' sighed Alda, in a tone not unlike those heard over the shop of Bexley; but then followed another question: 'I want to know what you think about Marilda?'
'About Marilda? You know she is coming this evening.'