"All right, mother," said Charlie, hastily. "But, please, I want that half-crown you promised me. I'm off to Stubbs' now, about those rabbits." And no more information concerning the new master was to be drawn from him.
"Tiresome young monkey!" cried Kate, as Charlie ran off with his half-crown. "Aldyth, you have no idea how provoking a young brother can be. You have no brothers or sisters to trouble you."
"I have a brother and sisters," said Aldyth, "though they cannot certainly be said to trouble me."
"To be sure! I always forget those relatives of yours on the other side of the world," said Kate, carelessly. "I must say I could not feel much affection for half-brothers and sisters whom I had never seen."
"But I hope to see them some day," said Aldyth, colouring as she spoke; "and I write to them, and they write to me sometimes. I should be sorry to feel as if I did not belong to them. But I must be going. I only looked in to ask Mrs. Bland if I had bought the right kind of wool that mother wants me to send her."
"Oh, Aldyth, don't go yet!" exclaimed Hilda, springing up in the hammock, and well-nigh overbalancing herself. "Do try the hammock; it's delicious this afternoon. A thousand apologies for not asking you before."
"Not now, thank you, Hilda," said Aldyth; "I have my letter to finish for the mail."
Though Aldyth was on the friendliest terms with all the Bland family, Hilda was especially her friend. The two girls walked arm-in-arm to the garden door, and after a prolonged good-bye there, Hilda came back to her mother and sisters.
"Kitty," she said, "you should not have said that about Aldyth's relatives. I am sure you hurt her, for she thinks so much of them all. She is always writing to them, and she never forgets one of their birthdays, though they sometimes forget hers."
"I am very sorry," said Kitty; "but really it is absurd to suppose that she can care as much for her brother and sisters as if they had been brought up together."