Miss Fishguard was not unnaturally startled by this remark. “I?” she echoed. “But, my love—!”
“Oh, yes, of course, to be sure!” said Kitty, recollecting herself. “The—the thing is, it seems strange to me just at first!”
Miss Fishguard could readily understand this. She pressed Kitty’s hand in a speaking manner: “A change in your circumstance, dear, but a natural one.”
Kitty gave an involuntary gurgle. “Well, I must own it doesn’t seem a natural thing to me to be engaged to marry Freddy!” she said frankly.
Miss Fishguard forbore to reprove her for this outburst of candour. She said: “A very eligible connection! He has a thousand amiable qualities—most distinguished manners, I am sure! Most truly the gentleman! But, oh, my love, when Stobhill dropped a hint in my ear—so very improper, but one scarcely liked to give him a set-down, for I daresay he meant it for the best!—I declare I felt ready to drop! Pardon me, my dear Kitty, if I am presumptuous enough to say that I had not the remotest guess—never expected—in short, was amazed almost into a spasm! I do not pretend to any extraordinary quickness in these matters: it has never appeared to me that dear Mr. Frederick had grown particular in his attentions!”
“No,” agreed Kitty, reflecting that since of all Mr. Penicuik’s relations Mr. Standen had been of late years the most infrequent visitor to Arnside, no one could wonder at Miss Fishguard’s surprise.
“In another, I might almost have supposed this event to have been occasioned by pecuniary considerations,” confessed Miss Fishguard. “I hasten, however, to assure you, my love, that in connection with Mr. Frederick such a suspicion has only to occur to one to be banished! I am persuaded that he has too much delicacy of mind and sensibility of heart ever to be swayed by mercenary impulses! Besides,” she added, “I cannot but be aware that he was born to the comfort of a handsome fortune.”
“I must say, I do hope that others besides you will think that,” remarked Kitty thoughtfully. “I quite see that it would be very disagreeable for poor Freddy to be supposed to have offered for me only to acquire Uncle Matthew’s money.”
“So ignoble a thought,” declared Miss Fishguard, “will not for an instant be permitted to obtrude!”
“I own, I cannot imagine how it should,” agreed Kitty, hugging her knees, and looking, with one curl escaping from beneath her cap, and a bow tied at a skittish angle under her chin, absurdly youthful. “But he seemed to think it would. Oh, well! very likely he quite mistakes the matter, for he is the most foolish creature!” She realized that she had shocked her governess, and added hastily: “I mean—I mean—he takes odd notions into his head!”