“She was a farmer’s daughter from the other side of Drum. He picked her up when staying here, some thirty years ago. I remember it quite well. My father was furiously angry.”
“And he never forgave the son,” mused Ursula, with one finger in her little Otto’s clammy clasp. “Not even the son. I thought people always forgave the son.”
“I assure you she is quite a nice, motherly person, and so unpretentious. That is what I like in her. It will be a pleasure to have her here, if only mamma consents to put up with her presence. Poor woman, she told me she had never even visited her own relations. I suppose she didn’t dare.”
“Her own relations,” repeated Ursula. “Isn’t that a difficulty?”
“I don’t see why, if people would only take things simply! She can go to them from here. No one believes more firmly than I do in true nobility, but it is not dependent on surroundings.”
She smiled up at him; “Ah, Otto, you say that on account of—me?”
But the suggestion annoyed him with the pain of its voluntary abasement. “The two cases have nothing in common,” he said, almost angrily. “If there is a possibility that you or any one else might draw absurd comparisons, I had better give up the idea at once.”
“No, no. I shall be glad to have them. Baby must learn to know and be good to all his relations.”
“Next year might do for that. But, Ursula, talking of Baby’s relations, we might ask your Uncle Mopius and his wife.”
“I consider Harriet has behaved disgracefully”—began Ursula.