“Yes,” said Henry, hopelessly. “Then—then that is settled?”
“Do you mean the weather? It ought to be settled, I should think.”
“No, I mean that I am to go with you and David Donner to meeting, no matter what sort of a day it is.”
“I think Granther will be glad of your company,” said Garde again. She led the way back to the living-room before Henry could frame any more of his tumble-down speeches.
Prudence and her mother were both here, now, and both looked up to smile at Wainsworth, whom they had grown to like for his evident sincerity. Mrs. Soam was a pleasant woman, with a double chin from which it seemed all manner of comfortable little chucklings of good-nature took their start. She should have been the mother of several boys, for she liked nice boys and felt a sense of motherhood over all she knew. Prudence was not at all like her mother. Her face was small and serious. She spoke with a quaint drawl. Although quite as old as Garde, she appeared so unsophisticated and childish, so quiet and unassertive that no one would have looked to find womanly emotions, in her breast.
“Well, Henry,” said Mrs. Soam, who always called “her boys” by their first names, “how have you been and what have you been doing? Have you heard from England recently? How was your mother, when you heard?”
“She was quite well, thank you,” said Henry, who could talk to Garde’s aunt without confusion, “but I have not heard from her recently. Oh—I nearly forgot—I have heard from England, in a manner. That is, a friend I knew there, arrived in Boston only yesterday.”
“Yes? And who was that?” said Mrs. Soam.
Garde had started to go up-stairs to her own apartment, which she shared with Prudence, but she halted at the door and came back, for Wainsworth said:
“His name is Adam Rust.”