“Oh! she is getting old,” said the girl lightly. “Of course she looks back a little.”
“But you don’t think—it would be too awful!”
She shook her head.
“No, no, my dear; you’re excited and tired. It’s just a little sentiment.... Oliver, I don’t think I would say that kind of thing before her.”
“But she hears it everywhere now.”
“No, she doesn’t. Remember she hardly ever goes out. Besides, she hates it. After all, she was brought up a Catholic.”
Oliver nodded, and lay back again, looking dreamily out.
“Isn’t it astonishing the way in which suggestion lasts? She can’t get it out of her head, even after fifty years. Well, watch her, won’t you?... By the way ...”
“Yes?”
“There’s a little more news from the East. They say Felsenburgh’s running the whole thing now. The Empire is sending him everywhere— Tobolsk, Benares, Yakutsk—everywhere; and he’s been to Australia.”