'Ferrets,' repeated Mrs. Caryll, 'have they got ferrets?'
'Yes,' Rosamond replied. 'I've not seen them, but I know they've got them. And they don't keep them at Moor Edge, because Mrs. Hervey doesn't like them. It isn't tell-taleing of me to have told you about them, is it, auntie?' she asked anxiously.
Mrs. Caryll felt distressed at the little girl's rather troubled tone.
'Of course not, dearie,' she said lightly. 'You may trust me not to make mischief. I quite see that it has been a little difficult for you.'
In her own mind she decided, however, that she would take measures to find out quietly, without involving little Rosamond, something more as to these very independent doings of her nephews, especially Justin.
'They had no right to take her to the Crags' cottage without special and distinct leave,' she thought to herself, 'though I feel pretty sure no harm would come to them through old Nance.'
For Aunt Mattie had often seen and talked to the old woman, and had a high opinion of her, though she thought it a pity that Nance kept on such distant terms with her neighbours, and she feared too that his grandmother was not quite strict enough with Bob, as there was no doubt that the prejudice against the boy's wild, untameable ways was doing him harm, and would do him still more harm in the future unless it could be got rid of.
'I will talk it over with Ted,' she said to herself. 'He always sees ways out of difficulties. Now it would be the very making of the boy if we could find a place for him in our stables under Peterson.'
Peterson was Mr. Caryll's coachman, and a very superior man, for he had travelled with his master at one time—not like Griffiths at Moor Edge, who, though most trustworthy in every way, had never been very many miles distant from home in his life, and was full of all the prejudices and even superstitions of that part of the country.
But Aunt Mattie kept all these thoughts in her own mind, and after a minute or two's silence she began to talk to Rosamond about other things, as she did not want the little girl to trouble herself about what she had told or not told of the boys' affairs.