‘I think I heard him say so,’ answered Kate.
And then there was a little pause. The Hardwick girls thought their great news was received very coldly, and were indignant at the want of interest shown in ‘our Bertie!’ After awhile Edith explained, with some dignity:
‘Of course my brother is very important to us’ (‘He is just the very nicest boy that ever was!’ from Minnie), ‘though we can’t expect others to take the same interest——’
Kate had looked up by instinct, and she caught Ombra’s eyes, which were opened in a curious little stare, with an elevation of the eyebrows which spoke volumes. Not the same interest! Kate’s heart grew a little sick—she could not tell why—and she turned away, making some conventional answer, she did not know what. A pause again, and then Mrs. Anderson asked, without looking up from her work:
‘Is Mr. Hardwick coming to the Rectory alone?’
‘Oh, yes! At least we think so,’ said the two girls in one.
‘I ask because he and his cousin were so inseparable,’ said Mrs. Anderson, smiling. ‘We used to say that when one was visible the other could not be far off.’
‘Oh! you mean Bertie Eldridge,’ said Edith. ‘No, I am sure he is not coming. Papa does not like our Bertie to be so much with him as he has been. We do not think Bertie Eldridge a nice companion for him,’ said the serious young woman, who rather looked down upon the boys, and echoed her parents’ sentiments, without any sense of inappropriateness. ‘No, we don’t at all like them to be so much together,’ said Minnie. Again Kate turned round instinctively. This time Ombra was smiling, almost laughing, with quite a gay light in her eyes.
‘Of course that is a subject beyond me,’ said Mrs. Anderson. ‘They seemed much attached to each other.’ And then the matter dropped, and the girls entered upon parish news, which left them full scope for prattle. Edith was engaged to be married to a neighbouring clergyman, and, accordingly, she was more than ever clerical and parochial in all her ways of thinking; while Minnie looked forward with a flutter, half of fear and half of excitement, to becoming the eldest Miss Hardwick, and having to manage the Sunday School and decorate the church by herself.
‘What shall I do when Edith is married?’ was the burden of all the talk she ventured upon alone. ‘Mamma is so much occupied, she can’t give very much assistance,’ she said. ‘Oh! dear Miss Courtenay, if you would come and help me sometimes when Edith goes away!’