Barbara looked on with a grim smile. Clare sat in perfect silence on her mother’s knee, suffering her caresses, but making no response.
“She is not like thee, Sister,” observed Rachel.
“No, she is like her father,” replied Lady Enville, stroking the child’s hair, and kissing her again. “Medoubteth if she will ever be as lovesome as I. I was much better favoured at her years.—Art thou aweary, sweeting?”
At last Clare spoke; but only in an affirmative monosyllable. Clare’s thoughts were mixed ones. It was rather nice to sit on that soft velvet lap, and be petted: but “Bab didn’t like her.” And why did not Bab like her?
“Thou hast not called me Mother, my floweret.”
Clare was too shy for that. The suggestion distressed her. To move the house seemed as near possibility as to frame her lips to say that short word. Fortunately for her, Lady Enville’s mind never dwelt on a subject for many seconds at once. She turned to Barbara.
“And how goes it with thee, Barbara?”
“Well, and I thank you, Mistress—my Lady, I would say.”
“Ah!” said Lady Enville, laughing softly. “I shall alway be Mistress Walter with thee, I am well assured. So my father Avery is dead, I count, or ye had not come?”
The question was put in a tone as light and airy as possible. Clare listened in surprised vexation. What did “she” mean by talking of “Gaffer,” in that strange way?—was she not sorry that he was gone away? Bab was—thought Clare.