“I know a man called Ambleton, true enough; but it will not be the same, I’m thinking,” and then he turned the conversation on the absent head of the house, and Mrs. Pennington poured out all her fears and hopes to him.
“Robert is in Glasgow now. I heard from him this morning. It seemed to me he wrote more cheerfully. Perhaps the Northern business may help the difficulties here. Robert speaks of remaining up there a while longer, to work up the connection all he can.”
“I heard from him, too,” Kestridge said, “and I think he’s doing the wisest thing, Aunt Phœbe. I’ll be glad to see him rid himself of the London business altogether, and stick to the Glasgow branch.”
“But that would mean living up North,” Winnie said, hurriedly. She shivered even at the bare idea.
“What does it matter where we live?” demanded Polly, sharply, as she cracked a nut. “London or Glasgow, it will be all the same a hundred years hence.”
Winifred’s face took a pathetic look.
“Oh! mother dear, don’t let us leave London. Can’t we stay on just as we are?”
Winnie could be very pretty and babyish when she liked. She was so now, and Hubert Kestridge looked at her with much compassion.
“You are all going to be just as happy as queens,” he cried, heartily; “little girls like Winnie and Polly have no need to trouble their heads about anything but happiness.”
Polly’s flushed face had gradually faded into a pallor of fatigue, now it flushed up again.