“The new curate!” suggested Bobby, grinning. “The chap who is fluttering the dovecots on account of his being unmarried. You devoted several letters to him, I remember. What’s he like?”
“He’s a little man in a big coat and a big hat,” she answered. “What can be seen of him is quite nice, but it isn’t much. There must be a brain of sorts under the hat, but it’s little too. His chief idiosyncrasy is that he fancies himself all brain. Mrs North is trying to marry her daughter to him.”
“And he prefers you,” commented Bobby... “naturally.”
Prudence smiled wickedly.
“He says it is the duty of a curate with only his stipend to depend upon to marry a woman of independent means. I think myself he will marry Matilda. He would like to belong to the family; the factory attracts him.”
“Money-grubbing little worm!” said Bobby, who was barely a year younger than Prudence and presumed on that account to set aside her more responsible relationship. “I wish he would marry Aunt Agatha. That would be something of a lark.”
“Poor little man!” said Prudence. “He’s not so impossible as all that. And he is horribly afraid of her. She makes him stammer.”
Bobby laughed outright.
“We’re all horribly afraid of her. That’s the funny part of it. And yet, you know, if one turned round and cheeked her she’d crumple up. I’ll do it one day.”
Prudence regarded him with increased respect.