“Mother should have waited till Mabella was gone,” said Alicia, calmly.
“Of course she should. But she couldn’t, by the bye. Mrs What’s-her-name—Wentworth—this Mrs Wentworth wrote offering a visit before Christmas, when they are going abroad somewhere. Oh, it really is too bad—”
The sisters were together in a sitting-room, appropriated to themselves, and in which they firmly believed that an immense amount of important business was transacted. It was a pretty little room, not specially tidy it must be confessed; but with the comfortable, prosperous air peculiar to everything to do with the Helmont family.
“Yes,” Florence repeated, “it is too bad.”
She pushed her chair back impatiently from the table at which she had been writing; as she did so, the door opened. Her brother Oliver and another man came in.
“What’s the matter? Florence, you look, for you, decidedly—how shall I express it?—not cross, ‘discomposed’ shall we say? Scold her, Rex; she has an immense respect for you, like every one else. Impress upon her that there is nothing and nobody in this weary world worth putting one’s self out about.”
The person addressed—a man ten years at least the senior of Oliver Helmont, who was the brother next in age to Florence—smiled slightly.
“What is the matter, Florence?” he repeated in turn, as he took up his station on the hearthrug; for it was November, and chilly.
“Ask Alicia,” said Florence. “She’s patienter than I. I’m too cross to explain.”
Major Winchester looked towards Miss Helmont.