'So Miss Darrell told me. What a good, unselfish little creature she is, Miss Garston! I do not know what Mr. Hamilton and his sisters would do without her. Ah, here we are at Maplehurst, and Tracy is looking out for us. Tracy, is the colonel at home? No, I am thankful to hear it. Poor little Flossie has met with an accident, and this lady has saved her life, but she tells me her leg is broken. Now, Miss Garston, will you believe it that I am such a coward that I could not be of the least assistance? Tracy, take Miss Garston into the morning room, and do your best to help her.' And Mrs. Maberley trotted away as fast as she could, while Tracy ushered me into a bright snug-looking room and asked me very civilly what she could do for me.
Tracy was a handy, sensible woman, and in a few minutes I had managed, with her help, to strap up poor Flossie's leg in the most successful manner.
'I am sure, ma'am, Mr. Hamilton couldn't have done better himself,' observed Tracy, looking at me with respectful admiration, while I petted Flossie, who was now lying comfortably in her basket, trying to lick her bandages. 'I must go and tell my mistress that it is done, for she will be fretting herself ill over poor Flossie.'
I expect Tracy sounded my praises, for when Mrs. Maberley entered the room in her pretty cap with gray ribbons there was not a trace of formality in her manner as she thanked me with tears in her eyes for my kindness to Flossie.
'To think of a young creature being so clever!' she said, folding her soft dimpled hands together. 'My dear, the colonel will be so grateful to you: he dotes on Flossie. You must stay and have tea with me, and then he can thank you himself. No, I shall take no refusal. Tracy, tell Marvel to bring up the tea-tray at once. My dear,' turning to me, when Tracy had left the room, 'I am almost ashamed to look you in the face when I remember how long you have been in Heathfield and that I have never called on you; but Etta told me that you did not care to have visitors.'
'Yes, I know, Mrs. Maberley; but that is quite a mistake,' I returned, somewhat eagerly, for I had fallen in love with the pretty old lady, and her tall, aristocratic colonel with his white moustache and grand military carriage, and had watched them with much interest from my place in church. She was such a dainty old lady, like a piece of Dresden china, with her pink cheeks and white curls and old-fashioned shoe-buckles; and she had such beautiful little hands, plump and soft as a baby's, which she seemed to regard with innocent pride, for she was always settling the lace ruffles round her wrists and pinching them up with careful fingers.
'Dear, dear! I thought Etta told me,' she began rather nervously.
'Miss Darrell makes mistakes, like other people,' I answered, smiling. 'I shall be very pleased to know my neighbours; it is quite true that I am not often at home, and just now I am very busy, but all the same I do not mean to shut myself out from society. One owes a duty to one's neighbours.'
'My dear Miss Garston, I am quite pleased to hear you talk so sensibly. I was afraid from what Etta said that you were a little eccentric and strong-minded, and I have such a dislike to that in young people; young ladies are so terribly independent at the present day, in my opinion, and I know the colonel thinks the same. They are sadly deficient in good manners and reverence. That is why I am so fond of the Hamilton girls: they are perfect young gentlewomen; they never talk slang or slip-shod English, and they know how to respect gray hairs. The colonel is devoted to Gladys: I tell him he is as fond of her as though she were his own daughter.'
'I think every one must be fond of Miss Hamilton.'