“It really tastes better Katherine’s way,” remarked Victoria, “if you have never tried it; but don’t change on our account, for the world! By the way, the people are really moving into the house on the hill. I saw some wagon loads of furniture going up there to-day. I do hope we shall like them.”
“I can’t see that it makes any difference whether we like them or not,” said Honor. “We shan’t see anything of them.”
“But why not, Honor?” asked Katherine. “They are going to be very near neighbors, and I can’t see why, if they are nice people, we shouldn’t be neighborly to them.”
“Father always liked us to be neighborly to our neighbors, even if he didn’t go about much himself,” added Victoria.
“It was very different then,” said Honor. “We weren’t working for our living. Those people, if they are rich and don’t know anything about us, will probably look down upon us, and I shall never expose myself to anything of that sort. No indeed. Let us keep to ourselves as much as we can, and to the old friends who know about us.”
“Well, I am interested in them anyhow,” said Victoria. “There are a father and mother and two children, I believe, and the boy’s name is Roger. I hope it will be some one for Peter. I heard all that from the postmistress, in case you want to know my authority.”
“I wish you wouldn’t gossip with the postmistress, Vic,” said Honor, with some severity. “It seems to me it is a queer thing to do.”
“But why?” asked her sister, imperturbably. “She’s known me and I’ve known her all my life. Why shouldn’t we have a little agreeable conversation together when I go for the letters? She told me this morning when she handed me Aunt Sophia’s postal card saying she was coming to see us next week, that she guessed—the postmistress guessed, I mean—that my Aunt Ward would be out here before long. Now that shows that she is a clever woman, as well as an honest one, for Aunt Sophia had only signed her initials, S.S.W,’ and yet she knew right away who it was from. And it wasn’t really necessary for her to let me know she had read the postal card, was it? So that was very honest. Oh, I like her, and she tells me a lot I want to know.”
CHAPTER X.
THE NEW NEIGHBORS ON THE HILL.
Mrs. Wentworth Ward, true to the word written upon her postal card, appeared at Glen Arden early in the ensuing week. Upon this occasion she made known to her nieces her intention of spending the greater part of the next five months at Glen Arden, and naturally this announcement was received with some dismay.