They were not far from the house by this time.
“I will run in by one of the side doors, and get to my own room,” Winifred went on. “Will you forgive my leaving you here—and—and I want to thank you, but I don’t quite know how I feel.”
“Never mind about me. It is all right as far as I am concerned. I am very thankful,” said Hertha.
Winifred was turning away when another thought struck her.
“About Celia,” she said. “I did—unselfishly, I think—I did want to help her,” and the choke in her voice touched Hertha again.
“I know you did, and rightly, and you may take comfort in the thought that it will, after all, have been through you that Celia is to have the opportunities she needs. She is to come to me, to live with me for a time, till, as she expresses it, she can ‘test’ herself. That is to say, dear Winifred, she can now do so. Had you held out, she would never have consented to leave home.”
Through Winifred’s flushed and tear-stained face her blue eyes looked up at Hertha with perplexity.
“I don’t think I yet quite understand your point of view,” she said. “Tell me, is it because you think Celia has special gifts, or that I have special calls, that you advise us so differently?”
“Both,” Miss Norreys replied.
“But supposing I had had her gifts as well as my calls, what then?”