A quarter of an hour given to business in the manager’s room, George’s, and then Thomas Godolphin went to Maria. She was seated now near the window, in her pretty morning dress, engaged in some sort of fancy work. In her gentle face, her soft sweet eyes, Thomas would sometimes fancy he read a resemblance to his lost Ethel. Thomas greatly loved and esteemed Maria.
She rose to receive him, holding out her hand that he might take it as she quietly but earnestly made inquiries about his state of health. Not so well as he was yesterday, Thomas answered. He supposed George had given her the account of their meeting the previous night, under the ash-trees, and of his, Thomas’s illness.
Maria had not heard it. “How could George have been near the ash-trees last night?” she, wondering, inquired. “Do you mean last night, Thomas?”
“Yes, last night, after I left you. I was taken ill in going home——”
Miss Meta, who had been fluttering about the terrace, fluttered in to see who might be talking to her mamma, and interrupted the conclusion of the sentence. “Uncle Thomas! Uncle Thomas!” cried she, joyously. They were great friends.
Her entrance diverted the channel of their conversation. Thomas took the child on his knee, fondly stroking her golden curls. Thomas remembered to have stroked just such golden curls on the head of his brother George, when he, George, was a little fellow of Meta’s age.
“Janet bade me ask if you would go to Ashlydyat for the day, Maria,” said he. “She——”
“Meta go too,” put in the little quick tongue. “Meta go too, Uncle Thomas.”
“Will Meta be good?—and not run away from Aunt Janet, and lose herself in the passages, as she did last time?” said Thomas, with a smile.
“Meta very good,” was the answer, given with an oracular nod of promise. Thomas turned to Maria.