“But, my dear, some one may call here. Your friends and mine will be looking in,” said Aunt Dinah, who knew that Trevor would arrive at about twelve o’clock.
“Well, I can return their visits all the same, and see them in their own houses,” said Vi, “just as well.”
“And what need to go to Mrs. Wagget to-day—to-morrow I fancy would answer,” said Miss Perfect.
“But I promised, you know, and she wrote to remind me.”
“Promised to leave your old granny alone again the day after your return!” she exclaimed, a little huffed.
“Why, darling, it was you who made me promise, don’t you recollect?” pleaded Miss Violet, “the day we paid them our last visit.”
“H’m—did I? Well, if there really was a promise, and I suppose you remember, we must keep it, I suppose.” Aunt Dinah had made that kind of scrupulousness an emphatic point in Violet’s simple education, and of course it could not now be trifled with. And now she did recollect the appointment, and something about walking to the school-house together at twelve o’clock—could anything be more unlucky? Aunt Dinah looked up at the sky; but no, it was not threatening—clear blue, with a pleasant white cloud or two, and a sea of sunshine.
“I’m so sorry, granny, we settled, it would have been so much pleasanter to have staid with you to-day, and I’m afraid it’s very wicked; but that school, except to very good people, it is really insupportable,” said Miss Vi, whose inflexible estimate of such appointments rather vexed Aunt Dinah, and not the less that she could not deny that it was her own work.
“It’s right in the main,” thought she. “But there are distinctions—there’s danger, however, in casuistry, and so let it be.” There was an odd little sense of relief too in the postponement of the crisis.
At about half-past eleven, Vane Trevor arrived. He came by the path, and from the drawing-room window Miss Perfect, sitting there at her work, saw him, and knocked and beckoned with her slender mittened hand.