“Yes, I dare say it is. I am afraid I am very dull at learning it.”
She was watching the expert fingers of Miss Gertrude admiringly. It was a piece of work she had commenced long before, but getting tired of it, she had offered to teach Christie, who was to finish it.
“It is very pretty,” said Christie, “and quite easy, when one knows the way.”
“Yes, it is quite easy,” said Miss Gertrude. But her manner was quite different from what it had been at the last lesson.
“She is not going to be vexed with me, if I can help it,” said Christie to herself; and in a little while she said, again:
“Miss Gertrude, have you any objection to my copying this pattern out of your book, to send to Effie? I am going to write to her. She is very quick at such work.”
“Certainly not; no objection at all. You can copy it if you like—if you think your sister can make anything of it.” Then, a little ashamed of her ungracious manner, she added, “I will copy it for you—and another, a much prettier one. When shall you send your letter away?”
“Oh, I am very much obliged! I write so slowly that there is no haste about it. I shall not have my letter ready till Friday.”
The next day Miss Gertrude made herself very busy with her practising, and with a magazine that Mr Sherwood had brought home. The day following she spent with her aunt, who sent for her in the morning. Thursday, she was as tired of her dignity as she was of the rain, and came into the green room with a smiling face, and a nice book in her hand. Christie received her exactly as she would have done had there been no interruption of their intercourse. She did not for a moment think of resenting Miss Gertrude’s coolness. She had been busy every moment of her spare time during these few days, writing to her sister, and she had missed her society far less than it would have pleased the young lady to know. But she was very glad to see her back again, and to hear her declare, as she seated herself in the arm-chair, that after all the green room was the very pleasantest in the house. So, with no more words about it, they fell into their old, pleasant ways again.
Mrs Seaton’s return made less difference in their manner of life than they supposed it would. She seemed to Christie a very different person from the pale, anxious invalid that went away so unwillingly; and indeed she was. Her health and spirits were quite restored. Instead of falling back into the retired mode of life that had become habitual to her since the illness of her little boy, she went into society, as she had done before; and as her circle of friends was large, she had very little time to devote to her children, and Christie continued to have almost as much care of Claude as she had had during his mother’s absence.