"It was very good of Mr. Gilbert to tell you, Reuben."
"Very."
They looked at each other, and smiled. Poor Richard Gilbert! Your cherished secret was very large print after all.
"Mr. Gilbert's her best friend, and sets heaps by her," said Uncle Reuben rising. "Call the girl at once, Hetty."
He left the kitchen and Aunt Hester obeyed. Norine was summoned from "Lucille," and Mr. Thorndyke—to look after the cakes, to make tea, to roll out the short-cake, to butter the biscuits, to set the table. For once Aunt Hester turned lazy and left everything to Norine. She had not breathing space until supper was on the table.
After supper it was as bad. Contrary to all precedent, instead of going to the piano, Norine got a basket of socks to darn. She looked at the heap and the rents with laughing dismay.
"All these for me, Aunty! I'll never get through in the world, and I want to practice my new songs with Mr. Thorndyke."
"Mr. Thorndyke will excuse you, I am sure," Aunt Hetty answered quietly. "You sing a great deal more for him than you darn for me. You darn very badly—it is time that you learned something useful. Here is your needle and ball, my dear, go to work at once."
Miss Bourdon made a little wry face; Mr. Thorndyke's laughing blue eyes looked knowing. Love and music were to be exchanged for cooking and darning, all thanks to Mr. Gilbert.
Aunt Hester placed herself between her guest and her niece, and kept her post like a very duenna all the evening. No poetry, no music, no compliments, no love-making, only silence and sock-darning. Laurence Thorndyke reclining on his lounge, even his efforts at conversation falling flat, saw and understood it all perfectly. By Gilbert's order the ewe lamb was to be guarded from the wolf. And his spirit rose with the resistance.