For her own part, she looked forward to the advent of these cousins with a great amount of interest. She had told the little Polperrans all about it, and they were greatly excited too.
"I am glad they are younger than you," said Prissy, as they walked home from church together. When Esther's mother was not able to get to church, Esther sat in the rectory pew, and her little friends generally walked with her as far as her own gate, which was about a quarter of a mile farther off than the rectory. "You will be able to keep them in order. Boys want that. They get obstreperous if they are left alone. Bertie is sometimes a little bit like that, but I never let him get the upper hand. It would never do."
Prissy was twelve years old, and had helped her mother at home and in the parish for quite a long time now. She was more grown-up in her ways than Esther, though not perhaps so thoughtful. She used to tell Esther that when she was old enough she meant to marry a clergyman and have a parish of her own; and Esther would listen with a sense of great respect and admiration, for she certainly felt that she should be very sorry to have a parish to care for. It was quite enough to have to help her mother to manage one little house.
"I hope they will be good boys," she said rather timidly; "I should think they are. They have had a grandmother and a governess as well as their father."
"I think grandmothers often spoil boys," Prissy answered, with her customary air of decision. "Ours does; I don't much like when she comes. She is often quite rude to me, and doesn't listen to what I say; but she pets Bertie, and gives him things, and lets him talk to her as much as he likes. I call that showing favoritism; I don't approve of it at all. In the parish mother never lets that sort of thing be."
"Who was that funny man in spectacles sitting in Mr. Trelawny's pew?" asked Milly, who was walking in front with Bertie, but who suddenly turned back to ask the question.
Esther had not even noticed him. She never looked towards Mr. Trelawny if she could help it. Often his great, deep-set eyes would be fixed upon her face, and that made her blush and tremble, and so she never glanced his way willingly. She had not even seen that there had been a stranger with him.
"I don't know," answered Prissy, as Esther evidently had no information to give; "I've never seen him before. I suppose he's a friend of Mr. Trelawny's, but he doesn't often have a visitor at the Crag. He's a queer man, mother says; though father always likes him."
"The other man looked like an owl; his spectacles were quite round," remarked Herbert; "most people's are oval. When the sun got on them they looked as if they were made of fire—like a big cat's eyes shining in the dark."
"Oh, don't," cried Esther quickly.