"That is impossible. I'm too fond of Ronnie and I believe in keeping—in keeping my word. Teddy's father is building a beautiful little house for him. And Teddy says that he has a quiet horse that a girl could ride. He believes in riding astride, so do I. I've never ridden, but that is the way I should ride—through the corn for miles and miles. You can see the mountains from Teddy's farm. They are covered with snow, even in the summer. There is a place called Banff where you can have a perfectly jolly time, dances and all that. In the winter, when it is freezingly cold, Teddy goes to Vancouver, where it is quite warm. He has an orange-farm somewhere."
For the third time she sighed. Christina in her wisdom, made no comment.
V
Evie usually had her breakfast alone. Christina was late and Mrs. Colebrook breakfasted before her family came down and was, moreover, so completely occupied in supplying the needs of her youngest daughter, that it would have been impossible to settle herself down to a meal.
Evie was generally down by a quarter to eight; the post came at eight o'clock. Until recently Evie had no interest in the movements of that official. Very few letters came to the house in any circumstances and of these Evie's share was negligible.
Teddy brought a new interest to the morning for he was a faithful correspondent, and the girl would have known long before, that he was an inmate of a superior caravanserie, had not the youth, in his modesty, written on the plainest of notepaper. Not then, nor at any other time, did the mail have any thrill for Mrs. Colebrook. She had a well-to-do sister living in the north who wrote to her regularly every six months. These letters might have been published as a supplement to the Nomenclature of Diseases, for they constituted a record of the obscure ailments which inflicted the writer's family. She had a sister-in-law living within a mile of her, whom she seldom saw and never heard from. Whatever letters came to the house were either for Christina or Evie, generally for Christina.
Ambrose Sault had once presented Christina with five hundred postal cards. It was one of the freakish things that Ambrose did, but behind it, there was a solid reason. Christina enjoyed a constant supply of old magazines and out-of-date periodicals. Evie collected them for her from her friends. And in these publications were alluring advertisements, the majority of which begged the reader, italically, to send for Illustrated Catalogue No. 74, or to write to Desk H. for a beautiful handbook describing at greater length the wonders of the articles advertised. Sometimes samples were offered, samples of baby's food, samples of fabric, samples of soap and patent medicine, and other delectable products.
Christina had expressed a wish that she could write, and Ambrose had supplied the means. Thereafter Christina's letter-bag was a considerable one. She knew more about motor-cars, their advantages over one another, their super-excellent speeds and economies, than the average dealer. If you asked her what car ran the longest distance on a can of petrol, she would not only tell you, but would specify which was the better of the gases supplied. She knew the relative nutritive qualities of every breakfast food on the market; the longest-wearing boots and the cheapest furniture.
Evie had finished her meal when the postman knocked.