“What a bore! I’m longing to stay with you in your own house. It’s my idea of happiness to go and stay with you girls when you are married. You will ask us all in turns, won’t you? I’d like to come with Chrissie; and then, if you and Ned get too affectionate, we can amuse ourselves in another room. It will be lovely having no grown-up person in the house. Oh, well, of course, you are grown-up, if it comes to that, but only young grown-up, and that makes all the difference. You won’t make us do things because they are ‘good for us’—send us a walk when we don’t feel inclined, for instance, or to bed early, or make us eat ‘good plain food.’ When I come to stay with you, I should like never to go out unless I have something special to do, and to have tea for lunch, and nice rich cake, and laze about from morning till night, just as I felt disposed.”
“And you’ll ask people to meet us, won’t you, Lil, and take us about, and give us all your old gloves and ribbons? Marie Elder’s sister is engaged, and he won’t let her wear any gloves that are the l–east little bit soiled; so Marie gets them all. I hope Ned will be fussy about your things, too. What shall you call your house? I hope it’s a nice one. Florrie Elder is going to have a blue drawing-room, and Marie is working her a cushion of the most ex-quisite ribbon-work you ever did see. Florrie says she would quarrel with her nearest and dearest if he dared to lean against it. If you like, I’ll ask her for the pattern, and do one for you. It wouldn’t matter having them the same, when you live so far apart.”
“What will Jim say? Ned and he vowed that they would be bachelors all their lives, and live together when they were old. Now he will be obliged to marry himself, in revenge. How I shall detest the girl! She won’t be half nice enough for him, and he will like her better than us, and that will be horribly exasperating. I don’t envy her when he brings her to see us, that’s all! Six sisters all glaring at her in a row, and saying to themselves, ‘I don’t like her nose!’ ‘I don’t like her eyes!’ ‘What a hat!’ ‘However could he fall in love with her!’ And mother all icy kind, and father smirking behind his moustache. That’s what will happen to you one of these days, Lilias, when you go north, ‘on view,’ to Ned’s people.”
Lilias rolled her eyes, and affected to tear her hair in despair.
“Oh, don’t! I pray you, don’t! I shall die with nervousness. Poor little me! His parents are reserved and undemonstrative, like most North-country people, he says, but are very tender-hearted at bottom. That means, I suppose, that they would be stiff and polite all the time I was there, and begin slowly to unbend just as I was coming away. Frederica, the girl, goes in for higher education, and doesn’t care a bit about going about with other girls. I know they will be disappointed with me. Ned is so silly, and he is sure to tell them.”—She stopped, sweetly simpering, and the hearers had little difficulty in guessing what it was that Ned would tell his people. He would say that his fiancée was the loveliest girl in the world; that she had hair like spun gold, a complexion of milk and roses, and eyes soft and dewy as a violet. Then Lilias would arrive in person, and his people would think that he had not said half enough. Each of the three hearers had a vision of Lilias advancing to meet the new relatives with lifted eyes, and a smile that would melt a heart of stone; each one saw in imagination the sudden thaw on the watching faces, and beheld Lilias installed forthwith as the pride and darling of the household. They smiled at one another in furtive amusement, but discreetly avoided putting their thoughts into words, for Lilias fished so transparently for compliments, that it had become an unspoken law never on any condition to encourage her by giving the desired assurance.
Agatha turned aside to hide her amusement, and, the next moment, gave a jump of astonishment.
“Keep still! Don’t move! For your lives don’t look out of the window! Sit where you are, and go on talking. My dears, he is watching us! The Vanburgh! I distinctly saw him lean forward and stare across. He is in the room directly opposite, and he dodged back the moment I looked. Fancy his being as much interested in us as we are in him! How exciting!”
“We must look very ridiculous, sitting here in a row, chattering and waving our hands as if we were mad. I don’t wonder he stared, but I do want to stare back. Let us take it in turns to peep beneath our eyelashes, while the others go on talking,” suggested Elsie; and the proposal was carried out forthwith, each girl watching till the coveted glimpse had been obtained, and informing her companions of her success by groans and exclamations.
“I see him, I do! He is staring across. He looks very ill. His hair is quite white. Poor old man, how dull he must be!”
When it came to Chrissie’s turn she stared across with undisguised curiosity, and refused to accept her sisters’ reproaches when the white head was hurriedly withdrawn from view.