“What is it you are saying?” she demanded, in the manner of one who had just awakened from a sleep, or a drowsy reverie. “I don’t think I heard you.”
“We were speaking,” said Miss Millicent, “of our young friends in the garden. Sister Hetty thinks, with me, that Hector is very fond of Miss Esmond.”
CHAPTER XIV.
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN VERY SWEET.
Lisbeth looked out into the garden, where the two stood together, Georgie blushing and smiling, as fresh and flower-like herself as any of Miss Clarissa’s many blossoms, Hector talking to her eagerly, his eyes full of pleasure in her beauty and youth.
“Fond of her?” she said, abstractedly. “Who is not fond of her?”
“But,” suggested Miss Hetty, “we mean fond of her in—in a different way.”
She had laid her hand on Lisbeth’s shoulder, and, as she spoke, she thought she felt a slight start; but the girl’s voice was steady enough when she spoke the next minute.
“Oh!” she said, laughing a little, “you mean that he is in love with her. I have no doubt you are right, though—though I had scarcely thought of that. Men are always in love with somebody; and if he is in love with Georgie, it does him great credit. I did not think he had the good taste.”
But the fact was, that the idea was something like a new light dawning upon her. Actually she had been so blind as not to think of this. And it had been before her eyes day after day!