“To speak to papa,” she repeated, “how lovely! He is perfectly satisfied that Horace came down on purpose to consult him about the new gamekeeper’s cottage, or something of that sort, that Ryder Morion is settling about. What will papa say? He will never be able to believe that one of us could be more interesting to talk to under any circumstances than he himself. Oh, it will be fun!”
But a tiny shadow had crept over Betty’s face. “You don’t think papa will be angry, do you, Eira?” she said, “or set himself in any way against it? Of course it won’t be all perfection, nothing ever is; we shall have to go to India, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t see why,” said Eira, “when the Littlewoods are so rich. But even if you have to, think what hundreds do so! Papa couldn’t be so unreasonable. And you may trust Horace to have thought everything well out.”
“Oh dear, yes,” said Betty, all the brightness returning. “He is only too anxious, too careful for me. No, I must not spoil it by being afraid about papa.”
Chapter Twenty Two.
Proverbs and Parents.
The luncheon bell rang at that moment. Eira, on the tiptoe of expectation, took her place quietly at table, and no one would have suspected the spirit of mischief which was largely mingled with her happy excitement. She spoke little, and only in her dancing eyes could anything unusual have been discerned.
Betty, on the contrary, was more talkative than her wont, and now and then Frances glanced at her in some perplexity, for Eira’s suspicion that a hint as to Betty’s probable whereabouts that morning had been given by the elder sister to Horace, when she met him for an instant, was well founded.