Ronder, who took trouble with everybody, smiled, sat down near to her and looked as though he loved her.
"Well, to be quite honest, I haven't been working very hard. Just seeing a few people."
"Just seeing a few people!" Mrs. Preston used a laugh that was a favourite of hers because she had once been told that it was like "a tinkling bell." "Listen to him! As though that weren't the hardest thing in the world. Giving out! Giving out! What is so exhausting, and yet what so worth while in the end? Unselfishness! I really sometimes feel that is the true secret of life."
"Have one of those little cakes, Julia," said Miss Ronder drily. She, unlike her nephew, bothered about very few people indeed. "Make a good tea."
"I will, as you want me to, dear Alice," said Mrs. Preston. "Oh, thank you, Canon Ronder! How good of you; ah, there! I've dropped my little bag. It's under that table. Thank you a thousand times! And isn't it strange about Mrs. Brandon and Mr. Morris?"
"Isn't what strange?" asked Miss Ronder, regarding her guest with grim cynicism.
"Oh well--nothing really, except that every one's asking what they can find in common. They're always together. Last Monday Aggie Combermere met her coming out of the Rectory, then Ellen Stiles saw them in the Precincts last Sunday afternoon, and I saw them myself this morning in the High Street."
"My dear Mrs. Preston," said Ronder, "why shouldn't they go about together?"
"No reason at all," said Mrs. Preston, blushing very prettily, as she always did when she fancied that any one was attacking her. "I'm sure that I'm only too glad that poor Mrs. Brandon has found a friend. My motto in life is, 'Let us all contribute to the happiness of one another to the best of our strength.'
"Truly, that's a thing we can all do, isn't it? Life isn't too bright for some people, I can't help thinking. And courage is the thing. After all, it isn't life that is important but simply how brave you are.