‘Thanks,’ she said, with a half laugh, ‘it was I who used to be the black sheep. Mrs. Plowden is not sure that she approves of me now; and if——’
‘If what?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lady William, with the slightest tinge of angry colour in her face.
‘That is just like mother,’ said Mab; ‘she gives you a word as if she were going to say something of importance, and then she tells you it is nothing. I have known her to do it a hundred times.’
‘There is nothing like the criticism of one’s children,’ said Lady William, with a laugh. ‘You, with your mother, Leo, and Mab with hers, you are two iconoclasts. Now, the humble people, like my good Emmy, are very different; they do not criticise. And then you despise them as common, you two—— Ah! here we are at our own door.’ She turned and held out her hand to Leo, who looked at her surprised.
‘Are you not going to ask me in?’ he said, holding part of the basket, for which Mab, too, had held out her hands.
They all stood looking at each other in front of the cottage door.
‘It is late,’ said Lady William, with some hesitation—‘yes, if you wish it: but don’t you think it would be better to get back to the Hall before it is dark?’
‘No,’ said Leo, ‘why should I hurry back to the Hall? Of course I wish it; and you never told me before that I was not to come.’
‘I do not say so now, but——’