“Well, I should think he would!” said Bessie, surprisingly. “I wouldn’t think much of any man who didn’t! She’s the nicest girl I ever saw or dreamed of seeing.”
“Oh, she’s all of that,” agreed Dolly, loyally. “You can’t tell me anything nice about Miss Eleanor that I haven’t found out for myself long ago. But Mr. Jamieson isn’t in love with her–and he’s known her much longer than Mr. Trenwith has.”
“That hasn’t got anything at all to do with it,” declared Bessie. “People don’t have to know one another a long time to fall in love–though sometimes they don’t always know about it themselves right away. And, besides, I think she and Mr. Jamieson are just like brother and sister. They’re only cousins, of course, but they’ve sort of grown up together, and they know one another awfully well.”
“You may know more about things like that than I do,” agreed Dolly, dubiously. “But I know this much, anyhow. If I were a man, I’d certainly be in love with Miss Eleanor, if I knew her at all.”
She stopped for a moment to look at Eleanor.
“Better not let her catch us whispering about her,” she went on. “She wouldn’t like it a little bit.”
“It isn’t a nice thing to do anyhow, Dolly. You’re perfectly right. I do think Mr. Trenwith’s a nice man. Maybe he’s good enough for her. But I think I’ll always like Mr. Jamieson better, because he’s been so nice to us from the very start, when he knew that we couldn’t pay him, the way people usually do lawyers who work so hard for them.”
“He certainly is a nice man, Bessie. But then so is Mr. Trenwith.”
“Look out, Dolly!” cautioned Bessie, with a low laugh. “You’ll be getting jealous and losing your temper first thing you know.”
“Oh, I guess not. Talking about losing one’s temper, I wonder if Gladys Cooper is still mad at us?”