"I hardly think it is a subject which can be discussed before Joan," Miss Rutherford answered. She rose and moved to the door. "I have always kept her very much a child, Ann; will you remember that in talking to her."
Miss Abercrombie waited till the door shut, then her eyes came back to Joan. The child had grown into a woman, she realized; what would that knowledge cost her old friend? Then she laughed, but not unkindly.
"I know someone else who has kept herself a child," she said, "and it makes the outlook of her mind a little narrow. Oh, well! you won't like me to speak disrespectfully of that very dear creature, your aunt. Will you come for a stroll down to the woods or are you longing to unpack?"
Joan chose the latter, because, for a second, despite her instantaneous liking for Miss Abercrombie, she was a little afraid. She wanted to set her thoughts in order too, to try and win back to the glad joy which she had first felt at being home, and which had been dispelled by Aunt Janet's questions and her own evasive replies.
"I will do my unpacking, I think," she said, "and put my room straight." She met the blue eyes again, kindly yet keen in their scrutiny. "I understand what you mean about Aunt Janet," she added; "I have felt it too, and, Miss Abercrombie, I am not quite such a child as she thinks; I could not help growing up."
"I know that, my dear," the other answered, "and God gave us our eyes to see both good and evil with; that is a thing your Aunt Janet is apt to forget. Well, run away and do your unpacking; we will meet later on at dinner."
CHAPTER IV
| "I have forgotten you! Wherefore my days Run gladly, as in those white hours gone by Before I learnt to love you. Now have I Returned to that old freedom, where the rays Of your strange wonder no more shall amaze My spirit." |
Anon.