‘My dear child!’ cried her mother. ‘Mr. Heathcote, this is all nonsense; you must not pay the least attention to what this silly child says. Engaged!—what folly, Rose! you know your sister is nothing of the kind. It is nothing but imagination; it is only your nonsense, it is——’
‘You wouldn’t dare, mamma, to say that to Anne,’ said Rose, with a very solemn face.
‘Dare! I hope I should dare to say anything to Anne. Mr. Heathcote will think we are a strange family when the mother wouldn’t dare to say anything to the daughter, and her own child taunts her with it. I don’t know what Mr. Heathcote would think of us,’ said Mrs. Mountford, vehemently, ‘if he believed what you said.’
‘I do not think anything but what you tell me,’ said Heathcote, endeavouring to smooth the troubled waters. ‘I know there are family difficulties everywhere. Pray don’t think of making explanations. I am sure whatever you do will be kind, and whatever Miss Mountford does will spring from a generous heart. One needs only to look at her to see that.’
Neither of the ladies thought he had paid any attention to Anne, and they were surprised—for it had not occurred to them that Anne, preoccupied as she was, could have any interest for the new comer. They were startled by the quite unbounded confidence in Anne which he thus took it upon him to profess. They exchanged looks of surprise. ‘Yes, Anne has a generous heart—no one can deny that,’ Mrs. Mountford said. It was in the tone of a half-unwilling admission, but it was all the more effective on that account. Anne had listened to their voices, half-pleased thus to escape interruption, half-disgusted to have more and more proofs of the frivolity of the new comer: she had heard a sentence now and then, an exclamation from Rose, and had been much amused by them. She was more startled by the cessation of the sounds, by the sudden fall, the whispering, the undertones, than by the conversation. What could they be talking of now, and why should they whisper as if there were secrets in hand? Next minute, however, when she was almost roused to the point of getting up to see what it was, Mrs. Mountford’s voice became audible again.
‘Do you sing now, Mr. Heathcote? I remember long ago you used to have a charming voice!’
‘I don’t know that it was ever very charming; but such as it is I have the remains of it,’ he said.
‘Then come and sing something,’ said Mrs. Mountford. What was it they had been saying which broke off so suddenly, and occasioned this jump to a different subject? But Anne composed herself to her dreams again, when she saw the group moving towards the piano. He sang, too, then! sang and danced and played football, after what had happened to him? Decidedly, the Italian princess must have had much to be said on her side.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SPECTATOR’S VIEW.
A few days passed, and the new cousin continued to be very popular at Mount. Mrs. Mountford made no secret of her liking for him.