She arrived quite suddenly and unexpectedly, without a maid even, with a new travelling bag. “I felt that I must see dear Mary once more before—— At her age one always feels a little nervous for an affair of this kind,” she said sympathetically to Lord Frogmore, whose radiant countenance naturally clouded over at this remark. “I can go home to-night if there’s no room for me,” she added, “though I brought a bag, you see, in case I should stay.”
“There must always be room for my brother John’s wife in any circumstances,” said the polite old lord, but he did not lead the way into the inner sanctuary until he had carried the news of this unexpected arrival. “Mrs. John Parke, my dear,” he said, “is so terribly anxious about you, Mary, that she has come all this way to know how you are.”
“Oh, Letitia!” cried Mary, and “Tisch!” cried Agnes, in equal consternation. They looked at each other and grew pale.
“Let me go down and speak to her. She will frighten Mary out of her wits if she comes upstairs.”
“Oh, no,” said Mary faintly, “she must come in. Oh, Frogmore, I can’t blame her, when I think of those poor children. Perhaps she will feel a little more for me—now——”
“Feel for you! You are the happiest woman I know,” said Agnes, indignant at her sister’s weakness.
“She feels nothing but envy and malice and all uncharitableness,” cried the old lord. “Never mind, my love. We’ll do our best for the children all the same; but you won’t let a woman like that interfere with your happiness, Mary?”
“N—no,” said Mary doubtfully. She grew very white, and then very red, and cried, “Oh, let her come at once, let me get it over,” with something that was very like a cry of despair.
But there was no offence in Letitia’s looks when she made her appearance. She explained again that she had brought a bag in case they would have her for the night, but otherwise that she could very well return to Greenpark the same night, for she would not for all the world upset dear Mary. Her eyes went round the room taking in everything at a glance. Oh, so like the Hills, she said to herself. Just what she would have expected of them. The big chair which was exactly Mrs. Hill, as if it had been made in imitation of her, and all the little trumpery ornaments and things, little pots of flowers and so forth. But Letitia took the chair which was like Mrs. Hill, feeling a momentary satisfaction in disturbing the habit which no doubt the vicar’s wife had already formed of sitting there, and beamed upon the little party as if she was as happy in her friend’s prospects as any of the family could be.
It was not until the evening that she showed the cloud that was hid under all this velvet. She had been so nice, so exactly what a sympathetic sister-in-law should be, that Mary’s mother and sister had not hesitated to leave her alone with their interesting invalid. Lord Frogmore had gone out for one of his frequent walks. The twilight was falling upon the long warm August day. It had begun to get a little dim in the room, though Mary through the open window was still watching the last evening glories in the western sky. Mary, too, had lost her fear of Letitia. It was so much more natural to think well of any one; to believe at bottom an old friend must always be kind. And what would be more natural between two old friends than to go back at such an hour upon the past, especially the past which had linked them so much more closely together.