"We shall lose Mrs. Ellicott and Miss Geraldine," moaned Mrs. Mountain. "They'll not stay when Captain Jack comes."
"How do you know? Hold your tongue, and let your betters manage their own business. Look after your own girl, if you want something to do."
Patty Mountain, probably infected by Miss Mountford's example, had consented to become the wife of William Burns as soon as her mistress's wedding had taken place. Their cottage was being made ready, and Mrs. Ellicott, Geraldine, Kathleen, and Aylmer were all helping by well-timed gifts to make it comfortable and pretty for the young couple.
Mountain liked his son-in-law-elect, but growled us usual, and declared that all girls were idiots who left a good service to marry, as they would never again be as well off. Mrs. Mountain was a much enduring woman, but she retorted for once.
"You've told the truth, George," she said. "I know a girl who left a good service thirty years ago, to marry a man who has grumbled at her more in a week than her mistresses did in all the years she served them."
Mountain was too much astonished to reply, so went off to the stables, leaving his wife triumphant.
Kathleen's twenty-first birthday soon came, and tenants were regaled and school-children feasted most liberally. She wished to have no gatherings at her own home, but at length agreed to a dinner-party for older friends, and an evening one for younger neighbours.
Hetty Stapleton was at neither. Her brother and his wife were guests, knowing nothing of what had passed between Kathleen and Hetty.
Kathleen had repented of her hasty words, and had learned to doubt the correctness of her conclusions regarding the acquaintance between Hetty and John Torrance. She told him nothing of the scene, but wrote to Hetty, and owned her fault in giving way to temper and using insulting words on the slenderest foundation. She begged her "to forget and forgive, and to be still the friend of her ever affectionate Kathleen Mountford."
Hetty wrote kindly in reply, and assured Kathleen of her forgiveness.