“No,” Imogen replied, with a softened tone in her voice, “it’s somebody dead. But not a very young girl.”
Five years later, and The Fells again, in its normal condition of hospitable cheeriness, and with, at the first glance, but few changes. The Squire is a little greyer, perhaps—a little greyer and a little stouter—and Mrs Helmont a trifle more grandmotherly in bearing and appearance. And the handsome figure and face of wild Trixie are conspicuous by their absence; for she is married and away—far away with her husband and his regiment in India, learning wisdom and other good things, it is to be hoped, by experience. In her stead there sits Lady Lucy, the pretty and irreproachable, though decidedly uninteresting, wife of Captain Helmont. Alicia and Florence are both in their usual places.
It is breakfast-time, and newspapers are handed about. From Oliver at one corner there comes an exclamation:
“I say, did any of you know that Robin—Robin Winchester was going to be married? Not going to be, he is married, and guess to whom—that’s to say, if you remember her.”
“Who?” said Alicia, languidly.
“That pretty, spoilt little girl who stayed here once, ages ago, before Trixie was married. What was her name—Gwendolin? No; Imogen Wentworth.”
“Dear me, how very odd!” said Alicia, with more interest in her tone. “They met here, then; no, they didn’t—did they, Florence?”
“They did meet, but only just,” said Florence; “still, I believe Robin dates his falling in love with her from then.”
Her father and mother turned to her. “Then you knew about it; you might have told us. Indeed, for the matter of that, Master Robin might have told us himself,” said the Squire.
“He is only a second-cousin after all,” said Florence, “and we never had seen anything of him scarcely. We never knew him like Rex—in the old days. And I believe he has been very little in England all these years.”