Penelope made a gesture of assent. ‘That is highly probable, and would account for her rejection of Septimus.’
Finally, the sisters mutually agreed that it would be politic to prepare Mrs Fraser for the possible proposal of their brother.
We trust the reader will not contemptuously label the spinster sisters as ‘matchmakers;’ for surely matchmaking is a fitting task for the angels, if it be true, as we are often told, that marriages are made in heaven.
At this moment the widow chanced to enter the drawing-room where the sisters were sitting. Her features still showed traces of the disappointment she had recently experienced.
‘We have not seen you all the morning, Mrs Fraser.’
‘I awoke with a slight headache, and sought the solitude of the Chine, my sole companion a book,’ replied the widow.
‘I trust you are better?’ said Lavinia.
‘Yes, thanks. I never enjoy Tennyson so much as when surrounded by murmuring foliage, and my ears filled with the sound of falling waters.’
‘How charming to have preserved your sentiment till now,’ said Penelope in marked tones.
This remark may seem ill calculated to put the widow in a good-tempered frame of mind. But Miss Redgrave had uttered it advisedly. The more fully Mrs Fraser was impressed with her own increasing years and fading charms, the more likely she was to listen to the suit of the elderly-looking Septimus.