“Sure? my dear child. I am certain the Major is delighted, Florence. He loves you as a daughter. But now, take this little chair close to me and tell me all you have to say.”
Florence found that she had not a great deal to say. There was something about Mrs Fortescue which seemed to shut her up. The first dawning of that young love which had awakened in her heart did not respond to the touch of the eager, selfish, worldly woman. Of course she did love—yes, she was certain now she loved Michael; but she hated talking about him. She would rather put him in the background, and when Mrs Fortescue—instead of answering her many questions with regard to the young man’s youth, his early history, his dead mother, his father when he was young, and those various things about his early life which Mrs Fortescue knew and Florence did not—preferred to talk about the girl’s own future, the way Michael and she would live (as Michael would probably leave the Army), and how nice it would be to settle in Langdale, Florence found a wall of separation rising up between herself and her quondam friend. She pleaded fatigue at last, and went to her room, where she spent a great part of the night in secret tears. For, notwithstanding the fact that the Major had visited Mrs Fortescue, and that Michael himself had told Florence that he would love her just the same if she were as poor as a church mouse, Florence felt certain that neither the Major nor Mrs Fortescue thought of her as a desirable wife for the young man except as a rich heiress.
“Well,” she said to herself finally, as she turned on her pillow for the fifth time, “if, after hearing everything, he cares for me, I will stick to him and work hard to save a little money until we can marry; but if he doesn’t—oh, oh—”
Florence would not allow herself even to finish the latter thought which came into her mind.
Chapter Ten.
“As Poor as a Church Mouse.”
On the following morning, Mrs Fortescue received her promised letter from Mr Timmins. He sat down to write it almost immediately he had seen Florence off by the train, and it arrived by first post the next day. Mrs Fortescue was in the habit of having her letters brought up to her bedroom, where she used to read them, luxuriously sipping her tea and eating her thin bread and butter the while.
Florence was sound asleep in bed while Mrs Fortescue was reading the most startling information she had perhaps ever got in the course of her life. Mr Timmins’ letter ran as follows—