Mrs. Pendrill was charmed with the beauty and sweetness of the girl, and it seemed as if Beatrice on her side was equally fascinated. When the time came to say good-bye, and the old lady held both her hands, and gazed into her bright face, as she asked for another visit very soon, she stooped suddenly, and kissed her with pretty, spontaneous warmth.
“Come again! Of course I will, as often as Monica will bring me. Good-bye, Mrs. Pendrill—Aunt Elizabeth I should like to say”—with a little rippling laugh. “I think you are just fit to be Monica’s ‘Saint Elizabeth.’ Is it the air of this place that makes you all so perfectly delightful? I shall have to come and live here too, I think.”
And as she and Monica rode home together over the sweeping downs, Beatrice turned to her after a long pause of silence and said:
“Monica, it was a dangerous experiment asking me to Trevlyn.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t feel as if I should ever want to leave it again. And I’m a dreadful sort of creature when I’m bent on my own way.”
Monica smiled.
“You will have to turn me out neck and crop in the end, I firmly believe. I feel I should just take root here, and never wish to go.”
Monica shook her head with a look of subdued amusement.