Just then her aunt’s voice rose in a sort of screech of incredulity—
“But she’ll never consent!”
“We’ll see about that. Leave it to me.”
Once more the voices became indistinct. In the kitchen doorway Kitty stopped short. Whom were they talking about now? Herself? When had her consent ever been asked for anything? For a few moments she hesitated, tempted to lay her ear against the parlour door. Then throwing up her head, she stepped softly along the passage and shut the front door with a bang.
As she turned from it the parlour door was snatched open, and her uncle’s face peered out. His brow was glistening and his eyes held gleams of excitement; but his voice was curiously mild.
“Come in here for a minute, Kitty,” he said.
She followed him into the room, wondering. This was not the customary reception on her return from seeing the London mail go by, and she was later to-night than ever she had been. Her aunt, sitting with folded hands on one side of the fern-filled hearth, gave her an instant’s glance, which conveyed nothing, and resumed staring at the folded, toil-worn hands in her lap. Her uncle took his chair on the other side, saying—
“Sit down. Ye’re late, but maybe ye’ve a good reason for that.” It may have been a smile that distorted, for a moment, his thin lips.
Kitty drew a chair from the table, seated herself and waited. She had learned long ago never to open a conversation with these two.
Mr. Corrie rubbed his hairy jaw between finger and thumb, cleared his throat, and said, almost pleasantly—“Well, did he meet ye?”