“And—and you have good accounts of Cherry?”
“Yes, pretty good, better than at first. He says that he looks better, and does not cough so much, and he likes it,—so he says, at least,” replied Jack, who, conceiving that propriety precluded the mention of Alvar’s name, found his personal pronouns puzzling.
“I am very glad,” said Virginia softly.
“Yes, I suppose they are at Seville by this time; they stayed at San José till Cherry was stronger. Al—he—they thought it best.”
“Your eldest brother would be very careful of him, I am sure,” said Virginia, with a gentle dignity that reassured Jack, though she blushed deeply.
“Yes,” he said more freely, “and they have made some friends; Mr Stanforth, the artist, you know, and his daughter; they’re very nice people, and they have been learning Spanish together. He writes in very good spirits,” concluded Jack viciously, and referring to Cherry, though poor Virginia’s imagination supplied another antecedent.
“I am glad to hear it,” she said. “I met that Miss Stanforth once. She was a pretty, dark-eyed child then. Good-bye, Jack, I am going soon to stay with my cousin Ruth.”
“Good-bye,” said Jack, with a scowl which she could not account for. “I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”
“Good-bye; good-bye, Buffer.”
Jack took his way home through the wet shrubberies. He felt sorry for Virginia, whom he regarded as injured by Alvar, but he thought that she ought to be angry with Ruth, never supposing that the latter’s delinquencies were unknown to her.