“Please don’t apologise, Miss Carlton,” he said. “You want to speak to me, and I am prepared to listen. What is it all about? I hope my dear girl is not dissatisfied in any way. I know your life here must be a little—a little—dull; but I trust that you are not thinking of leaving us.”
“Leaving you—my dear kind sir?” replied Brenda. “Far indeed are such ideas from my thoughts. I am nothing but a dependent, and lonely at that. Dear Mr Amberley, have I not heard you talk of your sweet children as orphans? Well, am I not an orphan, too?”
“Alas—that it should be the case!” said Mr Amberley.
“It is the case. My darling sister and I were left without parents when she was a very little child and I was a young girl. She has been fortunate enough to be admitted into one of the best schools anywhere in this part of England, or indeed, I may say in England at all. I allude to Hazlitt Chase. You must have heard of the name, sir.”
“Hazlitt Chase?” said Mr Amberley. “Of course I know the name. Lady Sophia L’Estrange has two daughters there—Mary and Juliet. Sweet young girls. Lady Sophia lives about four miles from here. I had not the slightest idea that you had a sister at such a distinguished school, Miss Carlton.”
“I have that privilege,” said Brenda, dropping her eyelids so that her long, curly, black eyelashes could rest in the most becoming manner against her peach-bloomy cheeks.
The rector looked at her with admiration.
“She certainly is a very sweet creature,” he thought.
“What is the name of your sister?” he asked, after a moment’s pause.
“She is called Penelope.”