"Is my uncle in the house?" Mr. Arundel asked, as he strolled from the stable into the garden with his cousin by his side.
"No; he has been out since dinner," Olivia answered; "but I expect him back every minute. I came out into the garden,—the house seemed so hot and stifling to-night, and I have been sitting in close cottages all day."
"Sitting in close cottages!" repeated Edward. "Ah, to be sure; visiting your rheumatic old pensioners, I suppose. How good you are, Olivia!"
"Good!"
She echoed the word in the very bitterness of a scorn that could not be repressed.
"Yes; everybody says so. The Millwards were at Marchmont Towers the other day, and they were talking of you, and praising your goodness, and speaking of your schools, and your blanket-associations, and your invalid-societies, and your mutual-help clubs, and all your plans for the parish. Why, you must work as hard as a prime-minister, Livy, by their account; you, who are only a few years older than I."
Only a few years! She started at the phrase, and bit her lip.
"I was three-and-twenty last month," she said.
"Ah, yes; to be sure. And I'm one-and-twenty. Then you're only two years older than I, Livy. But, then, you see, you're so clever, that you seem much older than you are. You'd make a fellow feel rather afraid of you, you know. Upon my word you do, Livy."
Miss Arundel did not reply to this speech of her cousin's. She was walking by his side up and down a narrow gravelled pathway, bordered by a hazel-hedge; she had gathered one of the slender twigs, and was idly stripping away the fluffy buds.