“Sit down, sit down, dear. It is only her fun. There is nobody speaking through the partition. The idea! Sliplin houses are not very well built, but I hope they are better than that.”
“I must have been mistaken,” said Miss Mildmay grimly. “I believe after all it is only Jane Shanks’ boy; he has a very gruff manly voice, though he is such a little thing, and a man’s voice is such a rarity in these parts that he deceives me. Well, Katherine, the two old cats hear everything. If it does not come to me it comes to her. My eyes are the sharpest, I think, but she hears the best. You can’t take us in. We know pretty well all that has happened to you, though you have been so very quiet about it. There was that young city man whom you wouldn’t have, and I applaud you for it. But he’ll make a match with somebody of much more consequence than you. And then there is poor Mr. Stanley. The Stanleys are as thankful to you as they can be, and well they may. Why, it would have turned the whole place upside down. A young very rich wife at the Rectory and the poor girls turned out of doors. It just shows how little religion does for some people.”
“Oh, stop! stop!” cried Mrs. Shanks. “What has his religion to do with it? It’s not against any man’s religion to fall in love with a nice girl.”
“Please don’t say any more on this subject,” cried Katherine; “if you think it’s a compliment to me to be fallen in love with—by an old gentleman!—— But I never said a word about the Rector. It is all one of your mistakes. You do make mistakes sometimes, Miss Mildmay. You took little Bobby’s voice for—a clergyman’s.” It gave more form to the comparison to say a clergyman than merely a man.
“So I did,” said Miss Mildmay, “that will always be remembered against me; but you are not going to escape, Katherine Tredgold, in that way. I shall go to your father, if you don’t mind, and tell him everything, and that you are shutting yourself up and seeing nobody, because of—— Well, if it is not because of that, what is it? It is not becoming, it is scarcely decent that a girl of your age should live so much alone.”
“Please let me go, Mrs. Shanks,” said Katherine. “Why should you upbraid me? I do the best I can; it is not my fault if there is nobody to stand by me.”
“We shall all stand by you, my dear,” said Mrs. Shanks, following her to the door, “and Ruth Mildmay is never so cross as she seems. We will stand by you, in the midge or otherwise, wherever you want to go. At all times you may be sure of us, Katherine, either Ruth Mildmay or me.”
But when the door was closed upon Katherine Mrs. Shanks rushed back to the little drawing-room, now just sinking into greyness, the last ray of the sunset gone. “You see,” she cried, “it’s all right, I to——”
But she was forestalled with a louder “I told you so!” from Miss Mildmay; “didn’t I always say it?” that lady concluded triumphantly. Mrs. Shanks might begin the first, but it was always her friend who secured the last word.
Katherine walked out into the still evening air, a little irritated, a little disgusted, and a little amused by the offer of these two chaperons and the midge to take her about. She had to walk through the High Street of Sliplin, and everybody was out at that hour. She passed Charlotte Stanley with her portfolio under her arm, who would probably have rushed to her and demanded a glance at the sketches even in the open road, or that Katherine should go in with her to the stationer’s to examine them at her ease on the counter; but who passed now with an awkward bow, having half crossed the road to get out of her way, yet sending a wistful smile nevertheless across what she herself would have called the middle distance. “Now what have I done to Charlotte?” Katherine said to herself. If there was anyone who ought to applaud her, who ought to be grateful to her, it was the Rector’s daughters. She went on with a sort of rueful smile on her lips, and came up without observing it to the big old landau, in which was seated Lady Jane. Katherine was hurrying past with a bow, when she was suddenly greeted from that unexpected quarter with a cry of “Katherine! where are you going so fast?” which brought her reluctantly back.