“Oh, yes, everybody is—you would like her too, Mrs Buchanan.”
“Should I? and why do you think that, Hope?”
“Oh, I know,” said Hope, in wise certainty, “because she likes Helen.”
The argument was irresistible, and Mrs Buchanan confessed it, by pulling Hope’s exuberant hair.
“Likes me!” the varying colour heightened on Helen’s face. “She does not know me, Hope.”
“Yes, but she does, Helen,” answered the sagacious Hope, “for I used to tell her; and she knows you quite well, and she says you are brave. Helen, if you only saw Miss Swinton! but you will when she comes.”
“She says I am brave;” Helen repeated the consolatory words under her breath, and asked herself “why?”
“But I do not know, my dear,” said Mrs Buchanan, “how Helen is to see this friend of yours, unless she calls on us—and we are strangers to her, you know.”
Mrs Buchanan was a little proud—she had no idea of being condescended to.
“Only wait till she comes,” said Hope, triumphantly, “I know she will want to see Helen sooner than anybody else, because she says Helen is—”