“Mabel thinks a deal of herself, that’s true. Well. I don’t know. One’s not another, Stephen.”
“I’ll not gainsay you, Aunt Isel. But mayn’t ‘another’ be better than none? Leastwise, some others,”—as a recollection of his amiable sister-in-law crossed his mind.
“I don’t know, Stephen. Sometimes that hangs on the ‘one.’ You’ll think it unnatural in me, lad, but I don’t miss Flemild nor Derette as I do Ermine.”
“Bless you, dear old thing!” said Stephen in his heart.
“O Stephen, lad, I believe you’ve a kind heart; you’ve shown it in a many little ways. Do let me speak to you of them now and again! Your uncle won’t have me say a word, and sometimes I feel as if I should burst. I don’t believe you’d tell on me, if I did, and it would relieve me like, if I could let it out to somebody.”
“Catch me at it!” said Stephen significantly. “You say what you’ve a mind, Aunt Isel: I’m as safe as the King’s Treasury.”
“Well, lad, do you think they’re all gone—every one?”
“I’m afraid there’s no hope for the most of them, Aunt,” said Stephen in a low voice.
“Then you do think there might—?”
“One, perhaps, or two—ay, there might be, that had got taken in somewhere. I can’t say it isn’t just possible. But folks would be afraid of helping them, mostly.”