Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'She is a dear little girl!' he said heartily; 'I do not wonder that you are so fond of her. She is only an undeveloped child now, but there is plenty of good raw material. Mollie will make a fine large-hearted woman one day—like someone else I know,' he finished to himself. 'If I do not mistake, Mollie is cut after Audrey's pattern.'

Now and then Mrs. Blake wrote also. Her letters were airy and picturesque, like her talk. Audrey would read them aloud to her mother and Michael.

'I really feel as though our Richmond dreams had come true,' she wrote once—'as though our favourite castle in the air were built. "Not really, mother? you don't think this beautiful house and garden belong to us really?" asks Mollie, in her stupid way. You know what a literal little soul she is. "Oh, go away, Mollie!" I exclaim quite crossly. "How can I help it if you have no imagination?" For all I know, the place is ours: no one interferes with us; we come and go as we like; the birds sing to us; the flowers bloom for our pleasure. Sometimes we sit by the lake, or Mollie paddles me to Deep-water Chine, or we read our history on that delicious circular seat overlooking the terraces. Then the silence is invaded: a neat-handed Phyllis—isn't that poetically expressed?—comes up with a message from that good Mrs. Draper: "Where would Mrs. Blake and Miss Mollie have their tea?" Oh, you dear, thoughtful creature, as though I do not know who has prompted Mrs. Draper! Of course Mollie cries: "The garden, mamma!" and "The garden so be it," say I. And presently it comes—such a tea! such fruit, such cream, such cakes! No wonder Mollie is growing fat. And how am I to thank you and dear Mrs. Ross? I must give it up; words will not express my sense of your goodness. But before I finish this rigmarole I must tell you that Mollie practises every day for an hour, and keeps up her French, and the Roman history progresses well. I am carrying Mollie so fast over the ground that we shall soon be dragged at Pompey's chariot-wheels; and as she complains that she forgets what we have read, I make her take notes and copy them neatly in a book. I know you will be glad to hear this.'

'Humph!' was Michael's sole observation, when Audrey had finished.

'It is a very interesting letter—very droll and amusing,' remarked Mrs. Ross, in her kindly way. 'Mrs. Blake is a clever woman; don't you think so, Michael?'

But Michael could not be induced to hazard an opinion; indeed, his behaviour was so unsatisfactory that Audrey threatened to keep the next letter to herself.

But the last week was nearly at an end, and, though everyone loudly lamented over this fact, it was observed that Mrs. Ross's countenance grew brighter every day. She never willingly left her beautiful home, and she always hailed her return to it with joy. Not even her Highland home, with its heather and long festoons of stag-horn moss, could divert her affections from her beloved Woodcote; and the young mistress of Hillside fully echoed these sentiments.

'It has been a lovely time, and has done Percy a world of good,' she said to her mother, as they were packing up some curiosities together; 'but I can see he is growing a little tired of idleness; and, after all, there is no place like home.'

'I am sure your father and I feel the same; and really, Geraldine, on a wet day these rooms are terribly small. I used to take my work upstairs; one seemed to breathe freer than in that stuffy parlour that Audrey and Michael think so charming.'

'So our last evening has come,' observed Audrey, in a curious tone, as she and Michael wandered down to the little bridge they called their trysting-place. A tiny rivulet of water trickled over the stones, and two or three ducks were dibbling with yellow bills among the miniature boulders. Audrey sat down on the low wall, and Michael stooped to pick up a pebble, an action that excited frantic joy in Booty's breast.