‘I wish you lived anywhere near us,’ Dora said to their visitor, as the three girls walked in the garden afterwards, and Maud echoed the wish.
‘It would be very nice,’ was Marian’s reply. ‘I have no friends of my own age in London.’
‘None?’
‘Not one!’
She was about to add something, but in the end kept silence.
‘You seem to get along with Miss Yule pretty well, after all,’ said Jasper, when the family were alone again.
‘Did you anticipate anything else?’ Maud asked.
‘It seemed doubtful, up at Yule’s house. Well, get her to come here again before I go. But it’s a pity she doesn’t play the piano,’ he added, musingly.
For two days nothing was seen of the Yules. Jasper went each afternoon to the stream in the valley, but did not again meet Marian. In the meanwhile he was growing restless. A fortnight always exhausted his capacity for enjoying the companionship of his mother and sisters, and this time he seemed anxious to get to the end of his holiday. For all that, there was no continuance of the domestic bickering which had begun. Whatever the reason, Maud behaved with unusual mildness to her brother, and Jasper in turn was gently disposed to both the girls.
On the morning of the third day—it was Saturday—he kept silence through breakfast, and just as all were about to rise from the table, he made a sudden announcement: