“How did he know you weren’t going to? Many a girl has had her heart broken for less.”
It was then that Grandpapa uttered his unkind allusion to Lydia’s undoubted appreciation of her favourite chestnut-pudding, made in honour of her arrival by Aunt Beryl herself.
Lydia knew very well that Grandpapa would have been still more disagreeable if she had pretended a complete loss of appetite, and she felt rather indignant that this very absence of affectation should thus come in for criticism.
Although she had only been away four months, the house seemed smaller, and the conversation of Aunt Beryl and Uncle George more restricted. She was not disappointed when her aunt told her that their Christmas dinner was to be eaten at midday, and that there would be guests.
“Who do you think is here, actually staying at the ‘Osborne’?” Miss Raymond inquired.
Lydia was unable to guess.
“Your Aunt Evelyn, with Olive. They’ve been worried about Olive for quite a time now—she can’t throw off a cold she caught in the autumn, and, of course, there have been lungs in the Senthoven family, so they’re a bit uneasy. Aunt Evelyn brought her down here for a change, and Bob’s coming down for Christmas Day. They keep him very busy at the office now. Don’t you ever run across him in town, Lydia?”
“No, never,” said Lydia, with great decision.
She had no wish to meet Bob Senthoven in London, although she was rather curious to see both her cousins again.
She caught sight of him in church on Christmas morning, where she decorously sat between Aunt Beryl and Uncle George, in the seats that had been theirs ever since Lydia could remember.