“I have been quite out, I see. When do you go to the Bruces’, to make the visit you were disappointed of at Christmas?”
“When they return from the Continent, where they are gone for three years. Miss Mary is out of reach for three years, sister.”
“Out of reach! You speak as if Paris,—or Rome, if you will,—was in Australia. And even in Australia one can hardly speak of people being out of reach.”
“If one wishes to overtake them,” said Mr Enderby: “whereas, I can wait very well for the Bruces till they come home again. Now, no more, sister! I cannot stand and hear the young ladies of my acquaintance catalogued as a speculation for my advantage. I could not look them in the face again after having permitted it.”
“There is somebody in the schoolroom, I declare!” cried the lady, as if astonished. And she stood looking from afar at the summer-house, in which three heads were distinctly visible.
“Were you not aware of that before? Did you suppose I was asleep there, or writing poetry all alone, or what? The Miss Ibbotsons are there, and Miss Young.”
“You remind me,” said the lady, “of something that I declared to Mr Rowland that I would speak to you about. My dear brother, you should have some compassion on the young ladies you fall in with.”
“I thought your great anxiety just now was that the young ladies should have compassion upon me.”
“One, Philip; the right one. But you really have no mercy. You are too modest to be aware of the mischief you may be doing. But let me entreat you not to turn the head of a girl whom you cannot possibly think seriously of.”
“Whom do you mean?”