"How can I?" he thought. "If Ralph is to turn over a new leaf, I must set the example, for he makes me his model in all things. He is a sharp-sighted youngster, but blind on one point, for he thinks his father can do no wrong. I wish I were a better man, for his sake. The less he sees of me, especially now, the more likely he is to improve."
This last thought followed the reading of that letter which had cost Ralph so much trouble little disappointment. All she had learned was, that her master's correspondence went to the address of his London lawyer, but of his movements she knew nothing. It seemed as if every one in the neighbourhood was equally ignorant.
[CHAPTER XV]
BOYISH CONFIDENCES
CHRISTMAS came and went. Kathleen's party was a great success, largely owing to the efforts of Aylmer, Geraldine, and Hetty Stapleton, who had been pressed into the service. Without them, the hands of the young hostess would have been too full.
In pity for Ralph's loneliness, he was invited to stay the night at the Hall. It would be too sad, Kathleen said, for the lonely boy to go back from all the brightness there to the dead quiet of Monk's How.
The boy enjoyed his visit to the full, but Kathleen noticed that he avoided Hetty Stapleton in a determined fashion.
"Don't you know Miss Stapleton?" she asked. "She is such a favourite with all the young people in the neighbourhood. Or have you and she quarrelled?"
The boy's face crimsoned as he answered, "Of course I know Miss Stapleton. Everybody does at Hollingsby. We haven't quarrelled, only I don't think we are friends."
"How is that, Ralph? She has surely not been unkind to you. If so, I must take her to task."