There was a new light in her eyes, a softer flush on her cheek, a gentleness of manner foreign to the old Gertrude. Molly's welcome was not more hearty than hers, or her sisterly embrace more tender or more entirely voluntary than was Gertrude's.
Nobody had told Richard anything, but he looked at his eldest sister and guessed her secret rightly.
The girl had given her heart to a good, but not a rich man, one who at first feared to offer his own to Miss Whitmore, of Mere Side, lest he should be suspected of seeking a rich bride whose wealth would make amends for his own small means.
For once Miss Sharp's tongue did good service without its being intended. Her keen eyes, ever on the watch, detected something in Gertrude's manner favourable to Mr. Kemble, of whose views she decided there could be no doubt.
"He is in the Civil Service, and has an income of three hundred a year," said Miss Sharp. "I dare say he thinks Gertrude Whitmore is an heiress, but I shall open his eyes, and show that proud minx what he is really looking after."
Miss Sharp carried out her resolution, and managed to let Mr. Kemble's sister and niece, visitors in the neighbourhood, know the exact amount to which Miss Whitmore was entitled under her father's will. The result astonished her.
Instead of packing up and departing at once, Mr. Kemble manifested the greatest delight. He would have shrunk from the heiress, but he dared to ask the girl he loved to share his lot, when he found out that there was not much disparity in their means, and none in social standing; and she accepted him with this proviso, that Richard must give his consent, though she was of age.
Gertrude told her brother this, sitting in the angle window, and with the moon shining in thereat.
Dick kissed her, rejoiced with her, and told her there was no need to wait for the advance of salary which Kemble was sure of in another year.
"True hearts should not be parted without a needs-be, my dear, and none exists in your case," he said. Then he told her how he had always put by a considerable portion of his income, in order that his sisters might not be dowerless maidens.