There was no reason for keeping the engagement secret, and Wroxton, like Athens of old, ever anxious to hear some new thing, was not slow though prolix in discussing the exciting news. Miss Clara Clifford was among the first to receive it, for that very afternoon, while Jack had gone to tell Canon and Mrs. Collingwood about it, she met Jeannie in the street. Ever since Jeannie had been so friendly to her in the matter of the picture she had regarded her with a mixture of worship and affection, and during the weeks of the typhoid she had, so to speak, built a temple to her. A warm heart beat underneath Miss Clara’s flat bosom, and its capacity for loving had never yet been put to the stretch. But Jeannie, with her beauty, her engaging grace, her kindness to herself, and her unquestioning devotion to the sick, had stormed and taken her. She was of a different order to the people of Miss Clifford’s world, and nightly Miss Clifford dreamed of the aristocracy no longer as beings apart, but as her friends. Jeannie met her as she was walking down the High Street, turned her round, and insisted on her going her way, and not much insistence was required.
“Oh, I have something to tell you,” she said, “which I am sure will interest you. Oh, there’s Jim! Jim, you don’t look any worse for your typhoid; you see you were sensible and came to hospital at once. The class will begin again on Saturday. I shall see you? Yes?”
Miss Clifford glowed with appreciation while Jeannie talked to her policeman, and the two went on together.
“What was I saying?” she continued. “Oh, yes! Do you remember once your telling me that I was engaged to Jack Collingwood? Well, now it is I who tell you that.”
Miss Clifford stepped into a puddle, and stood there.
“Oh, Miss Avesham!” she said. “I hope you will be very happy. To think that—dear me, how things turn out!”
“There is no secret about it,” said Jeannie; “you may tell whom you please. Only I should be rather glad, just in the way of private revenge, if you did not tell Colonel Raymond first. But as you please.”
“Miss Avesham,” said Miss Clara, impressively, “I would not tell Colonel Raymond for five gold mines.”
Jeannie laughed.
“Is he back yet?” she asked. “He went away, I think, a fortnight ago, when that poor little mite of his got typhoid.”