“Surest thing you know I won’t tell!” Kit reassured her. “Not now. Sometime when I’m alone with Miss Dallas you won’t mind? Because she’d love to know what you said of her.”
“She knows! She knows we all love her to pieces!” cried little Anne, seizing Anne Dallas around the waist, to the inconvenience of Helen, who drew her skirt away.
“Is this child an orphan? Why doesn’t that Sister Something-or-Other teach her manners?” demanded Helen, indulging her temper at the expense of prudence.
“We find our little Anne’s manners most admirable. Her mother is Mrs. Berkley, and she is so lovely that no little girl could have a better model,” said Richard, patting little Anne’s cheek; it was as hot beneath his hand as he had known that it would be.
Little Anne swallowed hard several times and clasped her hands tight.
“Well, that was a good act to offer up!” she said in a choked voice, and her friends had difficulty in restraining their smiles.
“When you are ready, Helen?” suggested Kit. “I suppose you have confided to Mr. Latham the secret that you were planning to tell him?”
“Not this time,” said Helen, recovering her smile. “Mr. Latham is coming to tea at your aunt’s; then I shall tell him, because there he will be at my mercy.”
“Are not men always at your mercy, Miss Abercrombie? Though I cannot see you, I have divined that,” said Richard, suavely.
“If you are walking our way, Miss Dallas, won’t you come with Miss Abercrombie and me?” Kit suggested.