And she went out by the open door with fine youthful majesty, leaving poor Will in a very doubtful state of mind behind her. He knew that in this particular Nelly did not understand him, and perhaps was not capable of sympathizing in the jealous watch he kept over his mother. But still Nelly was pleasant to look at and pleasant to talk to, and he did not want to be cast off by her. He stood and hesitated for a moment—but he could see the sun shining at the open door, and hear the river, and the birds, and the sound of Nelly’s step—and the end was that he went after her, there being nothing in the present crisis, as far as he could see, to justify a stern adoption of duty rather than pleasure; and there was nobody in the world but Nelly, as he had often explained to himself, by whom, when he talked, he stood the least chance of being understood.
This was how the new generation settled the matter. As for Aunt Agatha she cried over it in the solitude of her chamber, but by-and-by recovered too, thinking that after all it was only that silly woman. And she wrote an anxious note to Mrs. Percival, begging her now she was in England to come and see them at the Cottage. “I am getting old, my dear love, and I may not be long for this world, and you must let me see you before I die,” Aunt Agatha said. She thought she felt weaker than usual after her agitation, and regarded this sentence, which was in a high degree effective and sensational, with some pride. She felt sure that such a thought would go to her Winnie’s heart.
And so the Cottage lapsed once more into tranquillity, and into that sense that everything must go well which comes natural to the mind after a long interval of peace.
CHAPTER XXVII.
“I like all your people, mamma,” said Hugh, “and I like little Nelly best of all. She is a little jewel, and as fresh as a little rose.”
“And such a thing might happen as that she might make you a nice little wife one of these days,” said Aunt Agatha, who was always a match-maker in her heart.
Upon which Hugh nodded and laughed and grew slightly red, as became his years. “I had always the greatest confidence in your good sense, my dear Aunt,” he said in his laughing way, and never so much as thought of Wilfrid in the big Indian chair, who had been Nelly’s constant companion for at least one long year.
“I should like to know what business he has with Nelly,” said Will between his teeth. “A great hulking fellow, old enough to be her father.”
“She would never have you, Will,” said Hugh, laughing; “girls always despise a fellow of their own age. So you need not look sulky, old boy. For that matter I doubt very much if she’d have me.”
“You are presumptuous boys,” said Mrs. Ochterlony, “to think she would have either of you. She has too much to do at home, and too many things to think of. I should like to have her all to myself,” said Mary, with a sigh. She sighed, but she smiled; for though her boys could not be with her as Nelly might have been, still all was well with them, and the heart of their mother was content.