"Why did you run away?" George asked her on the first possible occasion.
Letty laughed, fenced with the question for four days, during which George was never dull for a single instant, and then capitulated. She allowed him to propose to her, and was graciously pleased to accept him.
The following week Tressady went down with Letty to her home at Helbeck. He found an invalid father, a remarkably foolish, inconsequent mother, and a younger sister, Elsie, on whom, as it seemed to him, the burdens of the house mainly rested.
The father, who was suffering from a slow but incurable disease, had the remains of much natural ability and acuteness. He was well content with Tressady as a son-in-law; though in the few interviews that Tressady was able to have with him on the question of settlements the young man took pains to state his money affairs as carefully and modestly as possible. Letty was not often in her father's room, and Mr. Sewell treated her, when she did come, rather like an agreeable guest than a daughter. But he was evidently extremely proud of her—as also was the mother—and he would talk much to George, when his health allowed it, of her good looks and her social success.
With the younger sister Tressady did not find it easy to make friends.
She was plain, sickly, and rather silent. She seemed to have scientific tastes and to be a great reader. And, so far as he could judge, the two sisters were not intimate.
"Don't hate me for taking her away!" he said, as he was bidding good-bye to Elsie, and glancing over her shoulder at Letty on the stairs.
The girl's quiet eyes were crossed by a momentary look of amusement. Then she controlled herself, and said gently:
"We didn't expect to keep her! Good-bye."