No one spoke. In the perfect silence the short colloquy which ensued at the front door was distinctly heard. Then came the sound of its shutting, and Parker appeared in the drawing-room with a card on a salver, which bore the name of Mr Horace Littlewood, an address, and added, in pencil in one corner, the letters, “p.p.c.”
Mr Morion threw it on to the table without comment; then turned sharply on Frances with a demand for a second cup of tea.
Frances handed it to him. Her face had grown scarlet—a most unusual occurrence with her. Lady Emma leaned back in her chair with an expressionless face. The younger girls, sitting together, clasped each other’s hand secretly in mute, inexpressible disappointment and indignation. Frances, crossing the room on the pretext of handing them their tea, glanced at them with such sympathy in her eyes as all but upset their outward composure. It is, indeed, to be questioned if in Eira’s case at least her tea was not mingled with unperceived tears; and as soon as they dared to do so all three sisters left the room.
Two or three days later came the climax to the episode which had broken the monotony of life at Fir Cottage, in anticipation even more than in actuality. For Frances, returning from one of the endless expeditions to the village from which as often as possible she saved the younger ones, came into their little sitting-room with a half-rueful, half-comical expression on her face.
“My dear pets,” she said, “I feel half-inclined to laugh at myself for minding what I have just heard, but for once I must own to absurd disappointment. Mr Webb has just told me that the Littlewoods have given up thoughts of taking Craig-Morion.”
Betty and Eira gazed at her speechless.
“I had hoped,” she went on, “that it would have brought some brightness, change, at least, and variety into your lives, you poor dears.” They glanced at each other.
“Dear Frances,” said Betty at last.
“But how little—oh! how little,” she said to Eira, when they were alone again, “Frances suspects why we mind so much!”
Eira was by this time quietly wiping her eyes.