“People say,” proceeded Cecil, unable to resist the impulse to acquire a partaker in her half-jealous aversion, “that it was a great disappointment that Mrs. Poynsett could not make her sons like her as much as she did herself.”
“Oh!” cried Rosamond, “how little peace we should have if we always heeded what people say!”
“People that know,” persisted Cecil.
“Not very wise or very kind people to say so,” quoth Rosamond; “though, by the bye, the intended sting is happily lost, considering that it lies among five.”
“Why should you assume a sting?”
“Because I see you are stung, and want to sting me,” said Rosamond, in so merry a tone that the earnestness was disguised.
“I! I’m not stung! What Mrs. Poynsett or Miss Bowater may have schemed is nothing to me,” said Cecil, with all her childish dignity.
“People talk of Irish imagination,” said Rosamond in her lazy meditative tone.
“Well?” demanded Cecil, sharply.
“Only it is not my Irish imagination that has devised this dreadful picture of the artful Jenny and Mrs. Poynsett spinning their toils to entrap the whole five brothers. Come, Cecil, take my advice and put it out of your head. Suppose it were true, small blame to Mrs. Poynsett.”