“And his nature,” proceeded Gabrielle, “and his dear, brave little soul. I am sure if trial came to him Phil could be a hero. What matter that he has got Aunt Bella’s uninteresting features? He has nothing more of her in him. Oh, she always was a silly, mysterious person! Just think of her not allowing Phil to tell us where he is!”
“My father says that there is method in Aunt Bella’s silliness,” continued Rupert. “Don’t you remember how suddenly she sold her little house at the back of our garden, Gabrielle, and how Betty found her burning an English newspaper; and how queer and nervous and flurried she became all of a sudden; and then how she asked father to give her that £200 he had of hers in the bank; and how she hurried off without saying good-by to one of us? We have not heard a word about her from that day until now, when Phil’s little letter has come.”
“She never even bid mother good-by,” continued Gabrielle in a pained voice. “Mother always stood up for Aunt Bella. She never allowed us to laugh at her or to grumble at her funny, tiresome ways.”
“Did mother allow us to laugh at any one?” continued Rupert. “There was nothing at all remarkable in our mother being kind to poor Aunt Bella, for she was good to every one.”
“But there was something strange in Aunt Bella not bidding our mother good-by,” pursued Gabrielle, “for I think she was a little fond of mother, and mother was so weak and ill at the time. I saw tears in Aunt Bella’s eyes once after mother had been talking to her. Yes, her going away was certainly very queer; but I have no time to talk any more about it now. I must go to my work. Rupert, shall we ride this afternoon? This is just the most perfect weather for riding before the great summer heat commences.”
“Yes, we’ll be in summer before we know where we are,” said Rupert; “it is the 4th of November to-day. I will ride with you at three o’clock, Gabrielle—that is, if father is not back.”
The brother and sister left the room to pursue their different vocations, and a short time afterward an old servant, with a closely frilled cap tied with a ribbon under her chin, came into the room. She was the identical Betty who had been Mrs. Lovel’s maid-of-all-work, and who had now transferred her services to the young people at Belmont. Betty was old, wrinkled, and of Irish birth, and sincerely attached to all the Lovels. She came into the room under the pretext of looking for some needlework which Gabrielle had mislaid, but her real object was to peer into the now open post-bag, and then to look suspiciously round the room.
“I smell it in the air,” she said, sniffing as she spoke. “As sure as I’m Betty O’Flanigan there’s news of Master Phil in the air! Was there a letter? Oh, glory! to think as there might be a letter from my own little master, and me not to know. Miss Gabrielle’s mighty close, and no mistake. Well, I’ll go and ask her bold outright if she has bad news of the darlint.”
Betty could not find Gabrielle’s lost embroidery, and perceiving that the post-bag was absolutely empty, she pottered out of the room again and upstairs to where her young lady was making up some accounts in a pretty little boudoir which had belonged to her mother.
“Och, and never a bit of it can I see, Miss Gabrielle,” said the old woman as she advanced into the room; and then she began sniffing the air again.