She shrank against the window, taking care not to stir the brocade.
"We will wait here,"—the voice was clear, musical.
"Thank you." Thomas's heavy step retreated. A door closed.
There was a moment of perfect stillness. Then that musical voice began again:
"Where do you suppose that young one is?"
A second voice rippled out a low laugh.
Gwendolyn laughed too,—silently, her face against the glass. The fat old gentleman in the gray-haired house chanced to be looking in her direction. He caught the broad smile and joined in.
"In the school-room likely,"—it was the first speaker, answering her own inquiry—"getting stuffed."
Stuffed! Gwendolyn could appreciate that. She choked back a giggle with one small hand.
Someone else thought the declaration amusing, for there was another well-bred ripple; then once more that murmur of trailing skirts, going toward the window-seat; going the opposite way also, as if one of the two was making a circuit of the room.