“Things mostly do, if people will have patience,” said Graeme, “and I am sure this will, for Harry, I mean. I was always inclined to like little Amy, only—only, we saw very little of her you know—and—yes, I am sure I shall love her dearly.”
“Well, you must make haste to tell Harry so, to complete his happiness. And he is very much astonished at his good fortune,” said Rose, taking up the letter again. “‘Not good enough for her,’ he says. That is the humility of true love, I suppose; and, really, if he is pleased, we may be. I daresay she is a nice little thing.”
“She is more than just a nice little thing. You should hear what Mr Millar says of her.”
“He ought to know! ‘Poor Charlie,’ as Harry calls him in the pride of his success. Go down-stairs, Graeme, and I will follow in a minute; I am nearly ready!”
The postscript which Rose was not sure whether Graeme had seen, said, “poor Charlie,” and intimated that Harry’s sisters owed him much kindness for the trouble he was taking in going so far to carry them the news in person. Not Harry’s own particular news, Rose supposed, but tidings of Will, and of all that was likely to interest them from both sides of the sea.
“I would like to know why he calls him ‘poor Charlie,’” said Rose, with a shrug. “I suppose, however, we must all seem like objects of compassion to Harry, at the moment of his triumph, as none of us have what has fallen to him.”
Graeme went down without a word, smiling to herself as she went. She had seen the postscript, and she thought she knew why Harry had written “poor Charlie,” but she said nothing to Rose. The subject of conversation had changed during her absence, it seemed.
“I want to know! Do tell!” Mr Snow was saying. “I call that first-rate news, if it is as you say, Mr Millar. Do the girls know it? Graeme, do you know that Harry is going to be married.”
“Yes, so Harry tells me.”
“And who is the lady? Is it anyone we know about? Roxbury,” repeated Mr Snow, with a puzzled look. “But it seems to me I thought I heard different. I don’t seem to understand.”