“Bless me!” exclaimed Mrs Burgess, “how was I to know? But what about my caps?”
“You shall have your caps; no fear of that,” replied Miss Halliday. “It’s not real ladies that break their word.” And with a little bow of dismissal, which Mrs Burgess meekly obeyed, she opened the door for the latter to make her way out.
“I’ve done no harm,” thought the little woman, with satisfaction; “she’s too pleased to have got hold of some gossip, to mind my plain-speaking.”
Half-an-hour or so later, Mrs Derwent and Blanche, who had been tempted by the loveliness of the autumn afternoon, to go farther than they had intended, made their way home through the fields at the back of the house, entering by a door in the garden wall, of which Blanche had the key. Half-way up the gravel path, the sound of voices reached them through the open glass door of the drawing-room.
“Dear me!” exclaimed Blanche, “whom can Stasy have got in there? She seems to be talking very busily, and—yes, laughing too. Listen, mamma.”
“It must be Herty,” Mrs Derwent replied, half indifferently, for she was feeling a little tired, and, as could not but happen now and then, for all her courage, somewhat depressed. “Herty, or Miss Halliday,” she added.
“No,” said Blanche, standing still for a moment. “Miss Halliday must be in the shop, as Stasy isn’t Mamma,” with a quick and slightly nervous misgiving, “I’m sure I hear a man’s voice.—Surely,” she thought to herself, “it can’t be—oh no, he would never come again in that way.”
“Who can it be?” said Mrs Derwent, for her ears, too, were quick.
They hastened on, Stasy’s cheerful tones banishing any apprehension. As they got to the door, Blanche naturally fell back, and Mrs Derwent stood alone on the step outside, looking into the room.
There was Stasy on a low seat, drawn up closely to her mother’s own pet arm-chair, in which was comfortably ensconced a figure, strange, yet familiar. Stasy’s face was turned from Mrs Derwent, but the visitor at once caught sight of her, and, as her lips framed the words, “Sir Adam!” he started up from his place and hastened forward.