“I have been wondering all the morning if there was going to be anything to hear. Did you see the Webbs?”
“We saw Mrs Webb,” said Frances, “on our way home. She really is in a flutter of excitement,” and here Frances became conscious of a half-suppressed movement on her father’s part, showing that he, too, was listening with interest. “It appears,” she went on, “that Mr Milne is expected here this evening—”
“About time,” interrupted Mr Morion. “There are several things waiting for him to decide. Tomlinson shelters himself behind Milne in an absurd way, whenever he’s asked to do anything. There’s that gate—coming this evening, do you say?” he broke off. “Why should any one be excited about that?”
“You didn’t let me finish, papa,” said Frances, for in her quiet way she could sometimes hold her own very effectually with her father. “Mr Milne is coming for a special reason; he is accompanied by, or accompanying, a Mr—somebody else—Mrs Webb couldn’t remember his name—who is thinking of taking Craig-Morion for a time.”
Her father started.
“They are going to let it?” he exclaimed, for he had all the old-world prejudice against the modern fashion of everybody living in somebody else’s house. “They’re actually going to let it? More shame to them—the real birthplace of the family as it is—and just because it’s small they care nothing about it in comparison with their other houses.”
“But it isn’t like selling it,” said Betty. “For my part, I shall be only too delighted if they do let it. Anything for a change, and at worst a chance of nice neighbours.”
“Yes,” said Lady Emma, agreeing for once, not uncordially, with her daughter’s point of view. “I don’t see why you need feel sore about it, Charles. Far better for the house to be lived in and aired, than to be shut up in that damp dreariness.”
“We do very well without neighbours,” said Mr Morion hastily. “Far better have none than objectionable ones.”
“Why should they be objectionable?” said Eira. “There must be plenty of nice people in the world as well as disagreeable ones.”