Miss Hortensia looked up as if awakened from a brown study.
“Did you speak, my dear?” she said.
“Yes, of course I did. I want you to say something about that queer boy. I suppose you think him very nice, or you wouldn’t let Mavis and me go to his cottage. You’re generally so frightened about us.”
“I do think he is a very nice boy,” said Miss Hortensia. “I am sure he is quite trustworthy.”
“I believe he’s a bit of a fairy, and I’m sure his old grandfather’s a wizard,” murmured Ruby. “And I quite expect, as I said to Joan, that we shall be turned into sea-gulls or frogs if we go there.”
“I shouldn’t mind being a sea-gull,” said Mavis. “Not for a little while at least. Would you, cousin Hortensia?”
But Miss Hortensia had not been listening to their chatter.
“My dears,” she said suddenly, “I will tell you one reason why I should be glad for you sometimes to have Winfried as a companion if he is as good and manly as he seems. I have had a letter from your father, telling me of a new guest we are to expect. It is a cousin of yours—a little nephew of your father’s—your aunt Margaret’s son. He is an only child, and, your father fears, a good deal spoilt. He is coming here because his father is away at sea and his mother is ill and must be kept quiet, and Bertrand, it seems, is very noisy.”
“Bertrand,” repeated Ruby, “oh, I remember about him. I remember father telling us about him—he is a horrid boy, I know.”
“Your father did not call him a horrid boy, I’m sure,” said Miss Hortensia.