But Harriet never suspected. Nor again, that evening while she and Austen read under the lamp, did Harriet know that Alexina, standing at the open parlour window gazing at the children playing on the sidewalk, was fighting back passionate tears of an outraged love and a baffling sense of injustice.
All at once a child’s treble came in from the pavement.
Alexina turned, with backward look of eager inquiry to her aunt, who had come behind her to see who called.
“As you please; go if you want,” said Harriet good-humouredly.
Austen, too, glanced out. Tip-toe on the stone curbing of the iron fence perched a little girl, spokesman for the group of children behind her.
“Who is the child?” he asked his sister.
“Her name is Carringford. She is a grand-daughter of the old Methodist minister who lives at the corner; secretary of his church board, or something, isn’t he? I’ve noticed two or three little Carringfords playing in the yard as I go by, and all of them handsome.”
Austen placed them at once. The child’s mother was the daughter of the old minister, and, with husband and children, lived in the little brown house with him. An interest in the details of the human affairs about him was an unexpected phase in Austen’s character. He liked to know what a man was doing, his income, his habits, his family ties.
“I know Carringford,” he remarked; “he is book-keeper for Williams, a good, steady man. As you say, a handsome child, exceedingly so.”