“Do you know,” he said, laughing, “what was in my mind at that moment? I was thinking how admirable the relations are between a brother and sister, when she is a good sister like you, Mary. Suppose you had been my wife instead of my sister. When I came in just now you would have overwhelmed me with questions, with complaints, with frettings, and made me angry. As it is, you have no anxiety but to put me at my ease, and your quiet kindness is a blessing to me.”
“But all wives are surely not like that, Bernard?” she returned, with pleased protest. “Most, I’m afraid; but no—not all.”
The strangest speculations began to live in Mary’s brain. Was it possible that her brother——? Oh, that was nonsense.
He was kind with the children when they came in from school, and, after tea, took a book and read to himself. Mary sent the youngsters a little earlier than usual to bed. When he and she sat alone, she saw that he made several beginnings of speaking; her eyes apparently busy over sewing, missed no phase of his countenance. At length he laid the book open on his knees.
“You remember my mentioning to you a large house called Knightswell, not far from my cottage?”
He did not look at her, but his eyes had an absent glimmer, not quite a smile, as they fixed themselves on the work she had on her lap.
“Yes, I do.”
“I have been there to-day.”
“Been all that way, Bernard?”
“Yes.”