“Be quiet,” interposed Una, angrily, and with scarlet cheeks; “what’s my style to such little chits as you?”
“Little chits indeed!” said Tory. “You might be glad to be a little chit. You’re getting to the awkward age, and you won’t have a little girl’s privileges much longer. You’d better look out. And besides, we shall none of us wear as well as my lady.”
“There’ll be Amethyst,” said Kattern. “If she’s so awfully pretty, we shall be out of the running.”
“She’s sure to be bread-and-butterish and goody; that won’t pay,” said Tory. “Now be quiet, I want to finish my book before she comes.”
“What’s it about?” asked Kattern.
“She married the wrong man, and the hero wants her to run away with him, but I suppose the husband will die, so it will all come right!” said Tory, drawing up her black legs into a comfortable attitude, and burying herself in her book.
On that morning Amethyst had been taken to London by her aunt; and, by no means so miserable as she thought she ought to have been, was delivered over to her father’s care.
Matters had settled themselves fairly pleasantly for Miss Haredale. Her house was let, and an old friend had asked her to go abroad with her for the summer, so that she was not left to solitude—a greater consolation just now to Amethyst than to herself. The girl felt the parting; but eager interest in the new old house, longing for her mother and sisters, and shy pleasure in her father’s notice, overwhelmed the feeling and pushed it aside for the time. She was delighted when her father took her to lunch at Verey’s, and enjoyed the strawberry ice which he gave her. She tried to adapt her conversation to what she supposed might be Lord Haredale’s tastes, and asked him if the hunting near Cleverley was good.
“Fond of riding, eh?” he said. “I haven’t been out for years,—never was much in my line. But your aunt, she was the best horse-woman in the county. Fellows used to lay bets on what ugly places Annabel Haredale would go in for next. But she was up to the game, and when she was expected to show off would ride as if she were following a funeral—make them open all the gates for her, and then go ahead like a bird and distance everybody.—You’ll do, if you have her hand at a horse’s mouth, and her seat on the saddle.”
Amethyst found some difficulty in picturing her aunt flying over the country like a bird, and answered humbly—