“Everybody, whether they were anybody or not.”
“And were there a great many flowers? and did our wreath look nice? was it as big as the others?”
“There were heaps of flowers; ours didn’t show one way or another. How could you expect it among such a lot?”
“But you were the chief mourners, Wat!”
“Yes, we were the chief mourners. I wish you wouldn’t ask me so many questions. Just because we were the chief mourners I saw next to nothing.”
“Did Cousin Alicia go?”
“How do you suppose she could go—to have all those people staring?”
“But did you see her?—did you see anybody? Did father say—”
“Oh, don’t bother me,” Walter cried. “Don’t you see I have enough to think of without that!”
“What has he to think of, I wonder?” said Mab to herself, gazing at him with her keen eyes. But the girls were silent, half respectful of the mysterious unknown things which he might now have to think of, half subdued by the presence of the looker-on, before whom they could not let it be supposed that Wat was less than perfect. And presently, after moving about a little, saying scarcely anything, he disappeared in-doors. Was it to the book-room, to look over his Greek? or was it to steal out by the other door and hurry once more to the village? It was there Mab felt sure that he always went. To the village—meaning doubtless to some girl there, of whose existence nobody knew.