Mildred went and came down again, bringing the children with her, little orderly things; steady Lucy quite like a mother to her baby brother. Mildred made acquaintance with them, and she and Peter gossiped away to their hearts' content; the one telling the news of the "old place," and its changes, the other listening.
"We think Lucy so much like you," Peter observed in the course of the evening, alluding to his little daughter.
"Like me!" repeated Mildred.
"It strikes us all. William never sees her but he thinks of you. He says we ought to have named her 'Mildred.'"
"His daughters are not named Mildred, either of them," she answered, hastily—an old sore sensation, that she had been striving so long to bury, becoming very rife within her.
"His wife chose their names—not he. She has a will of her own, and likes to exercise it."
"How do you get on with William's wife?"
"Not very well. She and Lucy did not take to each other at first, and I suppose never will. She is quite a fine lady now; and, indeed, always was, to my thinking; and William's wealth enables them to live in a style very different from what we can do. So Mrs. Arkell looks down upon us. We are invited to a grand, formal dinner there once a year, and that is about all our intercourse."
"A grand, formal dinner!" echoed Mildred. "For you!"
Peter nodded. "She makes it so on purpose, no doubt; a hint that we are not to be every-day visitors. She invites little Lucy there sometimes to play with Charlotte and Sophy; but I am sure the two girls despise the child just as their mother despises us."