Betty opened her eyes, profoundly interested. This was news indeed.
“Mr Ryder Morion!” she repeated. “I have never seen him. I suppose your being here has made him come. He is a relation of yours, too, isn’t he?”
“Not a relation, only a connection,” Mrs Littlewood corrected gently. “My elder son married his sister Elizabeth.”
For a second time Betty repeated the name that her hostess had just pronounced.
“Elizabeth—Elizabeth Morion she must have been. That is my name, too,” she said; “sometimes I wish it were not. We must both have been called after the same person, our great-grand-aunt Elizabeth.”
“It is a nice name,” said Mrs Littlewood, “and Betty is a charming ‘little name,’ as the French say. I am so glad it has come into fashion again. Why do you at all dislike it?”
“Because,” said Betty, glancing round her cautiously—Betty firmly believed that she was acquiring great tact and discretion—“because it was she that did all the harm to us, and caused the sort of feeling there has been ever since.”
“I have heard something of it,” said Mrs Littlewood. “But it is all so long ago,” she added soothingly.
“Yes,” said Betty eagerly, throwing discretion to the winds, “but you know they do say that in one way it isn’t so long ago. I mean—it is still there, so to speak, for they say that she”—with an instinctive glance over her shoulder—“has never left off thinking about it, and that she comes back,”—in an awe-struck whisper—“and I can’t help thinking it is true. I wouldn’t go along the Laurel Walk, and in at that library door at night, for—oh dear!” with a sudden start of horror, as she caught sight of her hostess’ startled expression, “what have I been saying? Frances would be so vexed with me!”