“So you know them, then, Miss Cheviott?” she said, cordially, smiling at Alys as she spoke. “Do tell me all you know about them. ‘Girls,’ you say—are they all girls, then—no sons?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alys, “I think there are sons—indeed, I feel sure there are. But it was the girls I noticed, one was so pretty.”
The eagerness died out of her voice, for the expression of her brother’s face told her that again she had managed to displease him.
“How unlucky I am to-day,” she said to herself, and the change in her manner was so complete that Mr Cheviott was afraid Mrs Brabazon would notice it.
“It is a case of ‘all kinds’ in the Western household,” he said, with a slight laugh. “Alys and I only saw them once in church—there seemed to be girls and boys, of every size, down to little mites—a regular poor parson’s family.”
“But what sort of people are they?” asked Mrs Brabazon. “Being such near neighbours, you must hear something about them.”
“They are not such very near neighbours of ours. Withenden is the nearest railway station to Hathercourt, and we are only three miles from Withenden, but Hathercourt again is four miles the other way. Of course I take some interest in Hathercourt now, on Arthur Beverley’s account. You heard of his romantic legacy?”
“Oh! yes,” said Mrs Brabazon. “He wrote all about it to Basil. But I wish you would tell me anything you do know or have heard about these Westerns.”
“Which is very little. They are not in any sort of society.”
“How could they be, if they are so very poor?”