"I hope not," he said, brightening. "She is a good woman, an excellent woman. I know she will watch over Pollie like a mother."
The words struck me as significant, and I could not help thinking that Miss Cottrell would have liked to hear them. As I turned from the house Dr. Poole's carriage came in sight driving rapidly towards it, so I had no more of Mr. Dicks's company at that time.
The morrow brought me a delightful letter from mother. She had been very sorry, she wrote, to learn of the outbreak of illness at "Gay Bowers." She had much sympathy for aunt and Mr. Dicks, and still more for the sufferer herself. It was perhaps wise of aunt to turn me out of the house for a while, but she was convinced that I had run little risk of taking the malady, and I was not to allow myself to think of such a thing. So sure was mother of my immunity from danger, that she told me I might come up to town on Monday and spend a couple of days at home, thus completing my week of quarantine.
"We all want to see you badly," she said, "and we have surprising news for you. I cannot do justice to it in a letter, and besides, I believe that Olive would like to tell you all about it herself."
I was delighted at the thought of going home, and mother's mysterious hint filled me with the liveliest curiosity. What could this surprising news be? Evidently it was something in which Olive was greatly interested; but although I made many surmises, I did not hit upon the truth. But when I spoke of it to Aunt Patty, she said quietly:
"I expect it means that Olive is engaged."
"Oh, auntie," I exclaimed, and the colour flew into my face, "what can make you say so? That is a most unlikely thing."
"Is it?" aunt asked with a smile. "You are paying Olive a nice compliment. It seems to me likely enough."
"But Olive!" I gasped. "Olive! Oh, I don't think it can be that!"
The idea was more startling than agreeable. How could we do without Olive? She seemed as truly a pillar of the house as either father or mother. Certainly I had never supposed that she would remain single all her days, but that within the near future she would marry and leave us was a prospect which appalled me, and I tried to persuade myself that it could not be as Aunt Patty imagined.