She and Elizabeth were crossing the bridge as she spoke. Away to the left, above the water, Elizabeth could see the sunlight reflected from the long line of windows which faced the river. The trees before them were almost leafless, and it was easy to distinguish one house from another. David Blake lived in the seventh house, and Miss Dobell was gazing very pointedly in that direction, and nodding her head.
“I dislike gossip,” she said. “I set my face against gossip, my dear Elizabeth, I do not approve of it. I do not talk scandal nor permit it to be talked in my presence. But I am not blind, or deaf. Oh, no. We should be thankful when we have all our faculties, and mine are unimpaired, oh, yes, quite unimpaired, although I am not quite as young as you are.”
“Yes?” said Elizabeth.
Miss Dobell became rather flustered. “I have a little errand,” she said hurriedly. “A little errand, my dear Elizabeth. I will not keep you, oh, no, I must not keep you now. I shall see you later, I shall come and see you, but I will not detain you now. Oh, no, Mary will be waiting for you.”
“So you have really come,” said Mary a little later.
After kissing her sister warmly, she had allowed a slight air of offence to appear. “I had begun to think you had missed your train. I am afraid the tea will be rather strong, I had it made punctually, you see. I was beginning to think that you hadn’t been able to tear yourself away from Agneta after all.”
“Now, Molly—” said Elizabeth, protestingly.
But Mary was not to be turned aside. “Of course you would much rather have stayed, I know that. Will you have bread and butter or tea-cake? When Mr. Mottisfont died, I said to myself, ‘Now she’ll go and live with Agneta, and she might just as well be dead.’ That’s why I was quite pleased when Edward came and told me that Mr. Mottisfont had said you were to stay on here for a year. Of course, as I said to Edward, he had no right to make any such condition, and if it had been any one but you, I shouldn’t have liked it at all. That’s what I said to Edward—‘It really isn’t fair, but Elizabeth isn’t like other people. She won’t try and run the house over my head, and she won’t want to be always with us.’ You see, married people do like to have their evenings, but as I said to Edward, ‘Elizabeth would much rather be in her own little room, with a book, than sitting with us.’ And you would, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” said Elizabeth laughing.
The spectacle of Mary being tactful always made her laugh.