‘Oh, I don’t know. There are some people who never leave her alone, who pretend to be old friends too,’ said Roger, ruefully. ‘And they live next door, worse luck; they are always there. Other old friends have no chance beside these Merediths.’
‘Oh!—is their name Meredith?’
‘Yes; do you know them? There is one, a palavering fellow, talks twenty to the dozen, and thinks no end of himself—a sneering beggar. I don’t mind the other so much; but that Oswald fellow——’
‘Oh!—is his name Oswald?’
‘I believe you know him. Do swells like that come a-visiting here?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Agnes, anxiously smoothing down suspicion; ‘there is a name—much the same—in Sister Mary Jane’s list of subscriptions. Oh, yes; and the gentleman carried a poor child to the hospital so very kindly. I noticed the name, because—because there is a poet called Oswald, or Owen, or something, Meredith. I wondered,’ said Agnes, faltering, telling the truth but meaning a fib, ‘whether it could be the same.’
‘Quite likely,’ said Roger; ‘the very kind of fellow that would write poetry and stuff—a sentimental duffer. To tell the truth,’ he added, with immense seriousness, ‘I don’t like to have little Cara exposed to all his rubbishing talk. She is as simple as a little angel, and believes all that’s said to her; and when a fellow like that gets a girl into a corner, and whispers and talks stuff——’ Roger continued, growing red and wroth.
Agnes did not make any reply. She turned round to examine the school-books with a sudden start—and, oh me! what curious, sudden pang was that, as if an arrow had been suddenly shot at her, which struck right through her heart?
‘Cara should not let anyone whisper to her in corners,’ she said at last, with a little sharpness, after her first shock. ‘She is too young for anything of that sort; and she is old enough to know better,’ she added, more sharply still. But Roger did not notice this contradiction. He was too much interested to notice exactly what was said.
‘She is too young to be exposed to all that,’ he said, mournfully; ‘how is she to find out at seventeen which is false and which is true? There now, Agnes, see what you might have done, had not you shut yourself up here. Nothing so likely as that Cara would have asked you to go and pay her a visit—and you could have taken care of her. But you know how romantic poor dear Miss Cherry is—and I should not be a bit surprised if that child allowed herself to be taken in, and threw herself away.’