She was alone when the two girls arrived, and greeted Sara with a humorous little smile.
“How kind of you to come, Miss Tennant! We've been all agog to meet you, Miles and I. In a tiny place like Monkshaven, you see, every one knows every one else's business, so of course we have been hearing of you constantly.”
“Then you might have come to Sunnyside to investigate me personally,” replied Sara, smiling back.
Miss Lavinia's face sobered suddenly, a shadow falling across her kind old eyes.
“Miles is—rather difficult about calling,” she said hesitatingly. “You will understand—his lameness makes him a little self-conscious with strangers,” she explained.
Sara looked distressed.
“Oh! Perhaps it would have been better if I had not come?” she suggested hastily. “Shall I run away and leave Molly here?”
Miss Lavinia flushed rose-pink.
“My dear, I hope Miles knows how to welcome a guest in his own house as befits a Herrick,” she said, with a delicious little air of old-world dignity. “Indeed, it is an excellent thing for him to be dragged out of his shell. Only, please—will you remember?—treat him exactly as though he were not lame—never try to help him in any way. It is that which hurts him so badly—when people make allowances for his lameness. Just ignore it.”
Sara nodded. She could understand that instinctive man's pride which recoiled from any tolerant recognition of a physical handicap.