“Oh, lovely! Do you know, cousin Margaret, Miss Nares and Miss Flint both cried when they heard how nearly you were drowned! I am sure, I had no idea they would have cared so much.”
“Nor I, my dear. But I dare say they feel kindly towards anyone saved from great danger.”
“Not everybody,” said Fanny; “only you, because you are a great favourite. Everybody says you are a great favourite. Papa cried last night—just a little tear or two, as gentlemen do—when he told mamma how sorry everybody in Deerbrook would have been if you had died.”
“There! that will do,” said Hester, struggling between her better and worse feelings—her remorse of this morning, and her present jealousy—and losing her temper between the two. “You have said quite enough about what you do not understand, my dears. I cannot have you make so free with your cousin’s name, children.”
The little girls looked at each other in wonder; and Hester thought she detected a lurking smile.
“I see what you are thinking, children. Yes, look, the rain is nearly over; and then you may go and tell Mrs Howell and Miss Nares, and all the people you see on your way home, that they had better attend to their own concerns than pretend to understand what would have been felt if your cousin had been drowned. I wonder at their impertinence.”
“Are you in earnest, cousin Hester? Shall we go and tell them so?”
“No; she is not in earnest,” said Margaret. “But before you go, Morris shall give you some pieces for your quilt—some very pretty ones, such as she knows I can spare.”
Margaret rang, and Morris took the children up-stairs, to choose for themselves out of Margaret’s drawer of pieces. When the door had closed behind them, Margaret said—“Sister, do not make me wish that I had died under the ice yesterday.”
“Margaret, how dare you say anything so wicked?”