“Would you care for a walk?” said Diana Grierson-Amberly, coming upon her in the hall.
“Always walks!” thought Rose with uncomprehending resignation, but Diana’s voice had sounded friendly, and she was grateful, although she could never understand the satisfaction to be derived from walking for half an hour along a country lane, with no shop windows to look into and no given objective, and then turning round and walking along the same road for another half hour back again.
“It isn’t even as though we had anything to say to one another,” she reflected.
But it appeared that Miss Grierson-Amberly had something to say on this occasion.
She sang the praises of the Aviolet family.
“I’ve always been so awfully fond of them all, here. Cousin Catherine is such a dear.”
“Oh, yes,” said Rose, with more of uncertain interrogation than of assent in her tone.
“I used to play with the boys a lot when I was younger, and they were always so nice to me, though they were so much older. Ford and I have always been great pals.”
There was a silence.
“He did so splendidly in South Africa. You know he was wounded at Spion Kop?”