“Yes, very nice,” answered Miss Lane, who had indeed not been insensible to the difference between the cookery of the Grange and that of the Vicarage.
“Did they all get tipsy?” asked Bertram, aged seven, very shyly.
“Oh, no! What makes you ask that, Bertram?”
“Ben said they did,” whispered he, sheepishly withdrawing—Ben was the coachman, with a dash of gardener.
“Did you think them nice?” asked Joan, inquisitorially.
“They were all very kind; but, oh, they quarrel dreadfully!”
“You wouldn’t like to be governess there, I suppose?”
“Oh, no, Mrs. Mainwaring!” answered Miss Lane, fervently and sincerely.
Yet, when she was once more alone, trying faithfully to banish outward thoughts and prepare herself for her prayers, the admiration, the warm kindliness of the wrong-headed Braithwaites would rush in and contrast itself with the logical conduct of the Mainwarings, who hung about her when she was in high spirits and neglected her when she was unhappy and unwell.
“I do hope he is not hurt!” was her last thought.