“Why not, dear? It’s a great deal better than turning Roman Catholic outright.”
“You’ve just said that it came to exactly the same thing.”
Bertha looked rather nonplussed for an instant, but recovered herself by exchanging a glance of good-humoured intelligence with Minnie, expressing very distinctly, “How like a man!”
“Anyhow, Frederick,” she returned in soothing accents, “it will probably all end in smoke. That’s my object in letting her go to Sybil for a bit. She will see that there’s nothing in it, so to speak.”
“An aching void,” was Minnie’s further contribution to the discussion.
Frederick retired behind his paper again.
“What a rest it would be to you if you could have the house to yourself for a bit!” said Miss Blandflower, looking fondly at Bertha.
“Well, I own that it would. This last year has been a trying one, for various reasons.”
Miss Blandflower, who knew as well as Bertha herself that these various reasons were all embodied in Mrs. Tregaskis’s only daughter, preserved a discreet silence.
“Well! that’s that,” was Bertha’s summing up. “I’ll see what the girls say. No doubt Rosamund will raise difficulties, poor child”—she laughed a little—“I’ve never yet known her fall in with any plan one suggested.”