Why was it, Grace Moffat asked herself, that when she saw the cousins talking confidentially together—saw John carry Nettie in her first convalescence from room to room, her head resting on his shoulder, her arm thrown around his neck in her helpless weakness—a pain went through her heart such as had never struck it before?
“Am I jealous?” she thought, with an uneasy laugh, “jealous of John! Absurd! Am I jealous of seeing another woman prove more attractive than myself? Yes, my dear Grace, that is what is the matter. You are growing old, and have got lean and ugly, and you cannot hear that your friend should, notwithstanding the troubles she has passed through, keep her good looks whilst you are losing yours. That is the secret of all this dissatisfaction. Time was when you would have laughed such an idea to scorn, in the days
“When I was young,
And had suitors, a full score.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Hartley looked on, but said nothing; not to Nettie, not to John, not to Grace did she speak on the subject.
Only to Lord Ardmorne did she open her mind.
“I think if we have patience, my lord,” she remarked uttering her oracle, “we shall see what we shall see.”
At which his lordship smiled with a gravity befitting his station and his political opinions, and said, he “earnestly hoped so.”
John Riley came as Mrs. Hartley said he would. He had seen the Scotts off. He went to Liverpool for the purpose. Amos was disturbed in his mind because at the last minute Mr. Moody had informed him there were no long-handled spades to be had in America, and he wished he had taken half-a-dozen out with him.
Mrs. Scott bade Mr. Riley say, if it cost twenty pounds, she would send the first cheese she made in the new country to Miss Grace. They had only one regret—that they could not take Reuben’s grave with them.