She glanced at her sister as she spoke, and saw that Brenda’s grave eyes were fixed on the letter. Brenda had not attempted to open it. She had laid it quietly by her plate.
“Who is your correspondent?” asked Florence.
“I don’t know,” said Brenda; “but I suppose it is from Mr Timmins.”
Then Florence somehow felt her appetite going and a coldness stealing over her. But Mrs Fortescue was in the best of spirits.
“I am delighted the man has written,” she said. “It was so queer of him to come down on Christmas Eve and have a long talk with you two girls and not say a word to me. Of course, you know, my darlings, that you are to me as my very own children, and there is nothing I would not do for you—”
“You would keep us with you if we were as poor as church mice, for instance,” said Florence, raising her eyes (they looked brown this morning) and fixing them with a saucy air on the good lady’s face.
“Indeed I would. I love you far beyond mere money. But what I want to say to you is this,”—Mrs Fortescue broke a piece of toast as she spoke, and her voice became a little nervous—“that whatever Mr Timmins intends to do for your future, I do trust he will not leave me out of it. I do not think it would be right of him, seeing that I have had the care of you ever since you have been both little children.”
“We have been most of our time at school, have we not?” said Brenda.
“Yes, dear; that is quite true; but who has prepared you for your school, and who has done her utmost to make your holidays happy?”
“Indeed, you have!” said Brenda, her voice full of feeling. “You have been most kind.”