Catharine gave a rather hard little laugh.
"Well, of course he and I shouldn't agree; I only meant we needn't go out of our way—"
"Certainly not. Only I can't help meeting him sometimes!"
Mary sat up, smiling, with her hands round her knees.
"Of course."
A pause. It was broken by the mother—as though reluctantly.
"Uncle Hugh was here while you were away. He told me about the service last Sunday. Your father would never—never—have done such a thing!"
The repressed passion with which the last words were spoken startled Mary. She made no reply, but her face, now once more turned toward the sunlit pond, had visibly saddened. Inwardly she found herself asking—"If father had lived?—if father were here now?"
Her reverie was broken by her mother's voice—softened—breathing a kind of compunction.
"I daresay he's a good sort of man."