Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'Ah, well,' in a tone of strong disgust, 'she is making her own bed, and must lie on it. It was an evil day for all of us when your father engaged Blake for his junior classical master. I wanted him to have Sowerby—Sowerby is the better man, and all his people are gentlefolks—but there is no turning the Doctor when he has got an idea in his head: no one but Blake would do. And now mischief has come of it. But, all the same, I won't have you making yourself ill about it—remember that, my love. You have got me to think about, and I don't choose to have my wife spoiling her eyes after this fashion. It is too damp for you to go out, for there has been a sharp shower or two; but I have half an hour to spare, and can read to you if you like.' And to this Geraldine gratefully assented.

It may be doubted whether she heard much of the brilliant essay that Mr. Harcourt had selected for her delectation, but it was very soothing to lie there and listen to her husband's voice. The sentences grew involved presently, and there was a humming, as though of bees, in the quiet room. Mr. Harcourt smiled to himself as he went on reading—the sleep would do her more good than the essay, he thought; and in this he was right.

When Mrs. Ross received her daughter's message she at once prepared to go up to Hillside, and spent the remainder of the afternoon there.

Geraldine had awakened from her nap much refreshed, and was disposed to take a less lugubrious view of things. She was certainly somewhat depressing at first, and her mother found her implied reproaches somewhat hard to bear; but she was still too languid and subdued to speak with her usual decision.

'I suppose that we shall have to make the best of it,' she observed presently, in a resigned tone of voice. 'It will always be a great trouble to me—but one must expect trouble in this world, as I said to Percy just now. I am afraid we have been too happy.'

'Oh, my dear! you must not say such things.'

'It is better to say them than to think them. Percy never minds how much I complain to him, if I will only not brood over worries by myself. He says that it is so bad for me.'

'Percival is quite right, my love;' and Mrs. Ross looked anxiously at her daughter's pale face. 'But you know your one duty is to keep yourself cheerful. Try and put all this away from your mind, and leave Audrey to be happy in her own way. Mr. Blake is really a very nice lovable fellow, and I am quite fond of him already, and so is your father—and I am sure your father is a good judge of character.'

'Yes, mother dear; and you must not think Percy and I mean to be tiresome and disagreeable. It is not the young man so much that we mind—though we shall always think Audrey is lowering herself in marrying him—but it is that odious Mrs. Blake.'

Then, for the moment, Mrs. Ross felt herself uncomfortable. Mrs. Blake had called on her that very morning, while Audrey was at Hillside, and in spite of her mildness and toleration she had been obliged to confess to herself that Mrs. Blake's manners had not quite pleased her. Geraldine managed to extract the whole account of the interview, though Mrs. Ross gave it rather reluctantly.