Looking for all the world like the everyday Philippa.
“I would not mind so much if Duke were with us,” said Philippa, doubtfully.
“Of course not; there would be nothing to mind. And some day, you may come back here—who knows?” But at this Philippa shook her head.
“I cannot imagine such a thing; it has grown into a sort of nightmare to me,” she replied, and in her heart she devoutly hoped that circumstances would combine to delay the invitation to Merle-in-the-Wold indefinitely. But at nineteen, feelings change.
With every mile on the homeward road the next day the girl’s spirits rose. And not even the constraint and unusual seriousness of her mother’s manner as she met the travellers at the station, whither she had expressly come to meet them, could prevent the relief and delight of knowing herself at home again.
“I have brought one of your hats and ordinary jackets for you to change at once,” Mrs Raynsworth said eagerly. “They are in the waiting-room in a small bag with my name on. Run and put them on while I look after the luggage with Evelyn. I could not risk the servants seeing you in that masquerade.”
The word stung Philippa. But she knew she had deserved it, and she felt touched by her mother’s thoughtfulness. Two minutes later she stood on the platform with the others, looking for all the world like the everyday Philippa, though a trifle paler and thinner than her wont, who had come to meet her sister on her arrival.
Evelyn glanced at her approvingly. But by tacit consent no allusion was made to the transformation, or the circumstances that had led to it, during the drive home of the mother and daughters in the Marlby fly; and the elder sister, who, whatever in the way of thoughtfulness she was deficient in, was certainly not wanting in tact, above all, where those dear to her were concerned, managed to ward off any painful sense of constraint by her graphic accounts of her visit and its undoubted success, intermingled with her delight at “coming home” again, home to her mother and the darling children.
“Bonny’s cough is better, you say, dear mamma? Oh, then it can’t be going to be whooping-cough. Indeed I have never felt really anxious about it. I don’t see how he could have caught it, with all the care you have taken of him. I shall have nothing but good news to send to poor old Duke by this mail. And don’t you think I am looking better? I feel quite different.”
“Yes, dear, I think the bracing air up there must have done you good,” Mrs Raynsworth replied, more brightly than she had yet spoken.