“Why not?” said Julia, aloud.
It is inconvenient to have a daughter who has not the sense to obey. Mrs. Harwood made no answer, but pushed the girl away, and after a moment’s pause Julia went, though whether to fulfil the message in the manner intended, her mother could not say.
“Things have changed very much for us all,” she said, in her cheerful voice; “I have a daughter on the eve of marriage, like you, Dr. Harding—a man who does not marry keeps so much longer young. You may remember my Gussy as a child——”
“I remember my little wife that is to be as a child,” he said, heartily, “and she might well have despised an old fellow. Yes, things have changed. It was very good for me, as it turns out, that I could not go on in my old way. I’ve been a hard-working man, and kept very close to it for a long time, and now things are mending with me. I shall be able to give this little thing what they all like—a carriage and finery and all that. I am going back—to the old place, Mrs. Harwood——”
“To Liverpool?” she said with something like a repressed scream.
“Yes, to Liverpool; they had heard of me, it appears, and then some of the old folks remembered I was a townsman. You have not kept up much connection with the old place, Mrs. Harwood.”
“None at all; you may suppose it would not be very pleasant for me.”
“Perhaps not,” he answered, drumming a little with his finger on his knee; “and yet I don’t know why, for there was always a great deal of sympathy with you.”
“Dr. Harding,” said Mrs. Harwood, with some eagerness and a nervous thrill in her voice, “may I ask you a favor? It is, please, not to speak of me to any of my old friends. You may think it strange—there is nobody else in the room, is there, Janet?—but I would rather the children did not know more than is necessary about the past.”
“I understand: and I honor you, madam,” said Dr. Harding, in an old-fashioned, emphatic way.