“Oh, yes!” replied Mrs Rowland; “I have long loved Mary as a sister. Their early attachment made a sister of her to me an age ago.”
“It has been a long engagement, then,” said Hester, glad to say anything which might occupy Mrs Rowland, as Margaret’s lips were now turning very white.
“Not now, my dear,” Margaret was heard to say to little Ned, over whom she was bending her head as he stood by her side. “Stand still here,” she continued, with wonderful cheerfulness of tone; “I want to hear your mamma tell us about Uncle Philip.” With the effort her strength rallied, and the paleness was gone before Mrs Rowland had turned round.
“How long the engagement has existed,” said the lady, “I cannot venture to say. I speak only of the attachment. Young people understand their own affairs, you know, and have their little mysteries, and laugh behind our backs, I dare say, at our ignorance of what they are about. Philip has been sly enough as to this, I own: but I must say I had my suspicions. I was pretty confident of his being engaged from the day that he told me in the summer, that he fully agreed with me that it was time he was settled.”
“How differently some people understood that!” thought Hester and Margaret at the same moment.
“Is Mr Enderby at Rome now?” asked Hester.
“No: he is hard at work, studying law. He is really going to apply to a profession now. Not that it would be necessary, for Mary has a very good fortune. But Mary wishes so much that he should—like a sensible girl as she is.”
“It is what I urged when he consulted me,” thought Margaret. She had had little idea whose counsel she was following up.
“We shall soon hear of his setting off for the Continent, however, I have no doubt,” said the lady.
“To bring home his bride,” observed Margaret, calmly.