She was standing by the library window, looking out into the little garden, where the spring flowers were beginning to look passées already, and the heavy rain made little brown pools in the gravel paths. It had poured steadily for three days.
“It is very dull,” she allowed, as she turned away from the window; “but it may clear this evening. I shall go out to-morrow whether it does or not. I can’t stay in the house any longer. You had better come too, Geneviève, if you are not afraid of catching cold. I dare say it is from not having been out that you feel dull. At Hivèritz you live so much in the open air, don’t you?”
“It depends,” said Geneviève indifferently. “When the days begin to get hot, we go not much out except in the evening. Now it is already very hot at Hivèritz—every one will be going away. Soon—next week probably, papa, mamma, my brothers, all the family will go to the mountains.”
She gave a little sigh. Cicely looked at her sympathisingly.
“You have not had a letter from home for some days, have you Geneviève?” she said.
“Not since two—three days after I came,” the girl replied. “There will be one soon, I suppose. I wrote last week—it was the day Mr. Fawcett came first, and the letter of my aunt was not ready. You remember, Cicely? Yes, I could have a letter to-morrow perhaps.”
She had worked herself into a little animation. Feeling dull about things in general, she now began to think she must be home-sick, and was quite ready to accept Cicely’s sympathy.
“You might have a letter this evening,” said Miss Methvyn. “I wonder if any one has been at Haverstock this afternoon. Oh! by the bye,” she went on, “if there is a letter for you, you will get it soon, for Trevor is coming here this evening, and he will be passing through Haverstock, and he always brings our letters when he comes that way.”
“Haverstock,” repeated Geneviève, looking puzzled but interested, “one passes not by there in coming from Lingthurst?”
“No,” said Cicely, “but Mr. Fawcett isn’t coming from Lingthurst. He has been in town since Monday.”