“No doubt she has weighed advantages. If the prospects you offered her had proved more to her taste she would have dismissed this elderly admirer. His fate has been decided during the last few weeks. It’s probable that the invitation to your Wednesday evenings gave her a hope of meeting young men.”
“I see no harm if it did,” said Miss Barfoot, smiling. “But Miss Vesper would very soon undeceive her on that point.”
“I hardly thought of her as a girl likely to make chance friendships with men in highways and by-ways.”
“No more did I; and that makes all the more content with what has come about. She ran a terrible risk, poor child. You see, Rhoda, nature is too strong for us.”
Rhoda threw her head back.
“And the delight of her sister! It is really pathetic. The mere fact that Monica is to be married blinds the poor woman to every possibility of misfortune.” In the course of the same conversation, Rhoda remarked thoughtfully,—
“It strikes me that Mr. Widdowson must be of a confiding nature. I don’t think men in general, at all events those with money, care to propose marriage to girls they encounter by the way.”
“I suppose he saw that the case was exceptional.”
“How was he to see that?”
“You are severe. Her shop training accounts for much. The elder sisters could never have found a husband in this way. The revelation must have shocked them at first.”