“Welcome, my dear child,” said Aunt Beryl very kindly to Lydia, and she kissed her.
Then she looked round sharply at the servant who had opened the door. Her face relaxed at the immaculate cap and apron that met her gaze, and she said graciously:
“Good afternoon, Gertrude.”
As they went into the dining-room, of which the door already stood open, Lydia heard Aunt Beryl say in tones of satisfaction:
“The girl really is improving at last. I’ve had such a time with her!”
“I wish I could get our girl at home to look half so smart,” said Aunt Evelyn, shaking her head. “But she’s got more than she can manage, with the house in the morning, and then the waiting at meals—Robert absolutely insists on that—and half her time she doesn’t dress in the afternoons at all, and I really can’t blame her. Just goes to the door with her arms all turned up, anyhow. Not that we have many callers,” sighed Aunt Evelyn. “I’ve had to give over social life altogether, practically; the children take such a lot of seeing to. Don’t ever marry a poor man, Beryl.”
The fiction still prevailed between the sisters that a choice of matrimonial projects lay ever before Miss Raymond.
“If you ladies have finished talking secrets——” said Uncle George, in reproachful reference to the rapid undertones employed by Lydia’s aunts.
“Yes, now what about Grandpapa?”
“He’ll want to see our little Lydia.”