“A great bore,” she repeated; “oh dear, no. I think they are delightful. But there are not many here. The Ferrabys have one on the vicar’s birthday if it is fine—that is the end of July, so it suits very well, as it is just about the time for the school feasts, and—”
A glance from Eira arrested her confidences, and Horace was left to wonder why the two entertainments coming together should be so desirable, Betty meekly accepting the reproof from her younger sister administered in privacy that she really need not say things “like that.”
“Mrs Ferraby would not like it,” she explained; “for of course I know what you were going to say—that the cakes and buns and things over came in so usefully.”
Her interruption in Mr Littlewood’s presence had been, she flattered herself, skilfully managed.
“The Ferrabys’ garden party is the dullest of any; I don’t think you need give it as an example, Betty,” she had said, and Horace listened with some amusement to her graphic description of the few neighbours within hail, who blossomed out into entertaining of even this mildest description.
“It is certainly rather an unusually isolated part of the world,” said he. “We shall be all the more grateful to you next week for helping us to amuse these good people—the Charlemonts. The daughter, by-the-by, Gertrude, is quite a nice little girl, about your own standing—eighteen or nineteen.”
This time it was Eira who was interrupted. She was just beginning a protest against being defrauded of the three or four years of seniority to the “nice little girl,” of which she was young enough to be rather proud, when Frances crossed the room with a note she had been writing to Miss Littlewood, which she wished her friend’s brother to take charge of.
“You won’t forget it?” she added, with a touch of playfulness rather new to her. Of late Frances had seemed younger; her manner to Horace was decidedly cordial and friendly—increasingly so, as they got to know each other better—and as he replied with an earnest disclaimer of any such possibility as his omitting to execute her commission, Eira’s slipper toe touched Betty’s significantly.
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said five minutes later, when their visitor had left and they were alone in her own quarters, “isn’t it delightful to see how well they are getting on?”
“Yes,” Betty replied, though there was a half-absent, almost dreamy tone in her voice. “Yes,” she repeated, rousing herself a little, “that is if—you are sure they are getting on all right, Eira?”