Mrs. Graham-Shute’s face woke at once into eager interest. She was not at heart an ill-natured woman, and it would have given her no satisfaction to hear anything very dreadful to the girl’s discredit. But some trifling indiscretion, some girlish escapade, which it would annoy John Bradfield, and, perhaps, disgust him to know, that Mrs. Graham-Shute would have dearly liked to hear about.
“What is it! What is it she has done?” she asked, quickly. “You may tell your mother, you know. It is nothing serious, of course?”
“Well, I don’t know,” grumbled Donald, in a surly tone. “Some people might think it serious for a girl to keep up a correspondence with some fellow, who daren’t send his letters by post!”
“What!” cried Mrs. Graham-Shute. “Ah!—are you sure of this, Donald?”
Nothing could be better than this, if it were only true. There was no great harm in it, but it was just the sort of thing to put an elderly admirer on his guard.
“Has she got you to take letters for her, then?” she asked in horror.
“Me? No—not such a fool!” returned Donald, shortly.
The lad was uneasy, being ashamed of himself for having betrayed the girl’s confidence, forced though it had been, and afraid of the use his mother might make of it.
“Now, you won’t go and make any mischief, will you, mother?” he said earnestly, alarmed by the expression of satisfaction on her face.
“I should think you might trust me,” she said haughtily, as she moved away, anxious to make use, without delay, of her new weapon.