“How do you do, my dear? I am Mrs Ramsden,” said the stoat lady, holding out her hand with a very pleasant friendliness. “As the niece of my dear friend and neighbour, allow me to give you a hearty welcome to our shores. This is my daughter, Elma, with whom I hope you will be great friends. I will leave you to talk together while I make my purchases. Young people always get on better alone!”
She smiled, a kind, motherly smile, nodding her head the while, until the upright feather quivered on its stem, then disappeared through the dingy portals, leaving the two girls on the narrow pavement staring at each other with bright, curious eyes.
“How—how do you like England?” queried Elma, shyly, and Cornelia answered with a happy laugh—
“I’ve been asked that question hef a dozen times already, and I only set foot on these shores day before yesterday. I think it seems a real good place for a nerve rest, but if you want to hustle!—” She shrugged expressively, and Elma smiled with quick understanding.
“Ah, you have been shopping at Willcox’s! But Willcox’s is not England—Norton is not England; it’s just a sleepy little backwater, shut away from the great current of life. Don’t judge England by what you see here. You’d like the real England—you couldn’t help liking that!”
“I like you!” said Cornelia, bluntly. She held out her hand with a gesture of frank camaraderie, and Elma clasped it, thrilling with pleasure. A happy conviction assured her that she had found a friend after her own heart.
Chapter Five.
By the time that Cornelia had been a week in residence at The Nook, she had become the one absorbing topic of Norton conversation, and her aunt’s attitude towards her was an odd mingling of shame and pride. On principle the spinster disapproved of almost everything that the girl did or said, and suffered every day a succession of electric shocks—but, as we all know, such shocks are guaranteed to exercise a bracing influence on the constitution, and Miss Briskett was conscious of feeling brighter and more alert than for many years past. She no longer reigned as monarch over all she surveyed. A Czar of Russia, suddenly confronted by a Duma of Radical principles and audacious energy, could not feel more proudly aggrieved and antagonistic, but it is conceivable that a Czar might cherish a secret affection for the leader of an opposition who showed himself honest, clever, and affectionate. In conclave with her own heart, Miss Briskett acknowledged that she cherished a distinct partiality for her niece, but in view of the said niece’s tendency to conceit, the partiality was rigorously concealed.