“As if I knew!”
“I think it must be something urgent. When she came in, that morning, only five minutes after mamma had driven off, she was so terribly disappointed, saying she would give a great deal to have spoken to her first. My sister is not quite so well again; that’s why mamma is staying longer.”
“I’ll tell her, Jane.”
“By the way, Johnny, what’s this they are saying—about some strange man being seen here? A special constable, peeping after bad characters?”
“A special constable?”
Jane Coney laughed. “Or a police-officer in disguise. It is what one of our maids told me.”
“Oh,” I answered, carelessly, for somehow I did not like the words; “you must mean a man that is looking at the land; an engineer.”
“Is that all?” cried Jane Coney. “How foolish people are!”
It was a sort of untruth, no doubt; but I should have told a worse in the necessity. I did not like the aspect of things; and they puzzled my brain unpleasantly all the way home.
Mrs. Todhetley was at work by the window when I got there. Tod had not made his re-appearance; Hugh and Lena were in bed. She dropped her work when I gave the message.