"Of course I should. I should have been a second mother to them," replied Annabel briskly, without, however, lifting the veil, which evidently, in her imagination, shrouded the fate of their first mother, and prevented the latter from fulfilling her appointed maternal duties.
Annabel was in particularly good spirits just then. Easter Day had passed without developing in Arthur any symptoms of blatant ritualism: the forget-me-nots were flourishing with such vigour that the blue blush, which was just beginning to tint their surface, promised to spread over the whole bed, and the results of the spring-cleaning, which had been conducted during our absence abroad, appeared to be more than usually drastic and complete. Therefore my sister's cup of happiness was inclined to brim over.
As for myself, I was impatient, I admit, for the coming of Miss Wildacre. As I was generally talking to Frank, and as Frank was generally talking about his sister, that sister necessarily was often in my thoughts, and I was extremely curious to see what manner of girl she would prove to be.
"When is your sister coming?" I asked him one day. "I thought you had left school this last term, and were coming to settle down at Restham for the summer: you on your way to Oxford in October, and your sister more or less for what people call 'good.'"
"So we are. Fay has left school as school; but she is so awfully keen on her old schoolmistresses that she is spending her last Easter with them just for pleasure, after all the other girls have gone home for the holidays, except one that has only a father and mother in India, and an aunt who is too full just now to take her in."
"I wonder at Miss Fay being so fond of her school-mistresses, as you told me she hated anything in the shape of improvement or instruction."
"So she does. But the Miss Wylies never improved her at all: she is just as nice now as she was when she first went there. And as for teaching her anything, they simply couldn't, for she knew a sight more when she was a kid of ten than they know now."
"A most harmless seminary," I murmured.
"But she is coming at the end of this week," Frank continued; "she says she can't keep away any longer, she is in such a tremendous hurry to see you, after all I've told her about you."
"What have you told her about me?" I asked, with pardonable curiosity.