“We know who each other is—or are—oh dear, how can I say it?” she replied as they walked on, “though we have never been introduced. I am only sorry you were not in the house there when Blanche came in. She would have liked to see you so much.”
Lady Hebe’s face flushed a little.
“I wish I had been,” she said. “We must have had the same feeling. I have wanted to meet your sister. I love her face, though I have only seen her twice. Perhaps, some day—” Then she hesitated. “I was rather hurried,” she went on; “I promised to meet—a friend, who will walk back to Crossburn with me.”
“Then you are not staying here, at Alderwood?” said Stasy.
“Oh no; I am not staying anywhere, except at what is my home—East Moddersham, near you. I came over here this afternoon to see Lady Harriot, or, rather, to see a dear old lady who is staying here. I sent my ponies on to Crossburn, as I am dining there, and shall dress there, and drive home late.”
“How nice!” said Stasy. “How delightful to have your own ponies and do exactly as you like! I do think English girls have such nice lives—so much fun and independence. I should have liked England ever so much better than France if I had been brought up in it, but as it is—” And Stasy sighed.
Lady Hebe listened with great interest. “And as it is,” she repeated, “do you not like it?”
“It is so very dull,” said Stasy lugubriously. “At least, I shouldn’t find it dull if I might amuse myself in ways mamma and Blanche would not like.”
Hebe looked rather startled, but Stasy was too engrossed with her own woes to notice it. “I mean,” she continued, “that there are some girls at the school I go to for classes, who are really nice, and there are lots who are very amusing. But mamma and Blanchie don’t want me to make friends with them, because, you see—well, they are not exactly refined.”
“I see,” said Hebe gravely; “and, of course, I think your mother and sister are quite right. But I can quite understand that it must be dull—for your sister too, is it not? She is not much older than you.”