“Very well, I will,” he said, in a patient voice; “but I really do wish Aunt Anne would turn up. I want some more scissors; I lost all those she gave me, and some one stole the case.”
“And Catty broke my velvet pincushion. It is, clearly, time that she turned up.”
When Walter had gone, Florence thought of Mrs. North again. “It was rather unkind of me not to be nice to her, for she was generous to Aunt Anne,” she said to herself. “I wonder whether I could go and call upon her now. I might explain that I never dared to mention Madame Celestine’s bills.”
But she had no more time in which to think of Mrs. North, for there were the inevitable domestic matters to arrange; and then Ethel Dunlop came in, full of her engagement to George Dighton.
“I always imagined it was merely friendship,” Florence said, thinking regretfully of the editor.
“Did you?” said Ethel, brightly. “We thought so ourselves for a long time, I believe; but we found out that we were mistaken. By the way, Florence, you can’t think how good Mr. Fisher has been to us.”
“Mr. Fisher? Well, you don’t deserve anything from him.”
“No, I don’t. Still, it wasn’t my fault that he proposed; I never encouraged him. How droll it was of him to come and pour out his troubles to you.”
“I think it was manly and dignified,” Florence said; “it proved that he wasn’t ashamed of wanting to marry you. Did he write a nice letter, Ethel?”
“Yes, very, I think.”