“Fairly so. Evey fusses a little, but she is always sweet, and we love having them. We shall miss them terribly when Duke comes home and they go to him, though I suppose it would be selfish not to be glad when he does. I shall miss them almost the most of all.”
“They keep you pretty busy, I daresay.”
“Ye-es, but not too busy. I am so thankful not to be one of those poor girls who can’t find anything to do. There is no doubt about what I have to do. But things are much clearer than they were, now that papa is better. And when Charlie is at home for good, they will be easier still.”
“We shall have you crying for work to do then,” said Maida, smiling.
But Philippa shook her head.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
Miss Lermont turned to go in.
“Come, Philippa; we really shall catch, cold if we stay out here longer,” and Philippa followed her into the house.
“How few people understand each other!” thought the elder woman, as she went across the hall and down the wide passage to the drawing-room. “Nobody, to see her as she commonly is, would think that Philippa had those undertones in her character—that tenderness and sensitiveness that come out now and then. She seems just a very charming girl—bright and energetic, and full of humour.”
And two minutes later, when Maida was resting on her sofa again, and heard Philippa’s voice in spite of her reluctance to return to the “talking,” one of the liveliest in the family party, and noticed her quick tactful readiness to suit herself to whatever was going on, the contrast with the dreamy girl who had stood gazing at the darkening sky outside, responsive to every whisper of Nature’s evening prayer, struck her even more.