“Your sister who found the jewels?”
“Yes. Lady Carleton’s very good to her; but she told me—for I went to speak to her ladyship about it—that the girl don’t exactly fit in for service. There’s no one to look after her at home, specially if, as seems likely, my eldest sister settles in life. And I declare, sir, the way the young girls at Rapley run about together is worse for her than any rough company she might see out our way. She gets into mischief for want of something bigger to do. And mischief for girls—well, it is the mischief indeed!”
“So you mean to take her out?”
“No, not with me. They want to have her home a bit first; and she’d be better to wait for this Confirmation. She’s set her heart on being confirmed with Miss Geraldine.”
“Oh, yes, I heard my sister speak of it. But how shall you get her out to you?”
“Markham’s mother and sister are coming out in the spring, and would bring her. You see, sir, Alberta must have some one—we can’t get girls out our way. There’ll be plenty for Florrie to do, and I make no doubt she’ll be happy, and what my aunt calls work off her bouncing.”
Alwyn laughed. “It seems a very good place,” he said; “and certainly she did us a good turn. What—what are the Warrens thinking about for little Wyn? I wish we could give him an opening.”
“I don’t think his parents would part with him,” said Harry. “He’s a nice little chap, but it is a bit difficult to say what next for him. He’s too small and not the sort for a gamekeeper, and, as his father says, he’d never have the heart to kill the vermin. Then he thought of getting him taken into the garden under Mr Elton; but I’m afraid he’d fret and not be much good here.”
“Edgar asked me to take care of him,” said Alwyn. “He said that perhaps he had spoiled him for other work. But he was very fond of him.”
“Ah, sir, he’ll be none the worse for having thought of some one before himself. You know they had had a notion, as he was so handy and quiet, to let him be put under a butler for a time and then be trained up to wait on invalid gentlemen. But—”