She got up, and said, turning round with an air of changing the subject, ‘Have you written to your friends about our engagement? You had not done so when I asked you lately.’
‘I have.’
‘All?’
‘Well, not all.’
‘Your great friend, Miss —— what do you call her?’
‘Miss Carton. I have not written to her.’
She tapped impatiently with her foot.
‘They were really old companions—that is all,’ said Mrs. Sherman, wishing to mend matters. ‘They were both readers; that brought them together. I never much fancied her. Yet she was well enough as a friend, and helped, maybe, with reading, and the gardening, and his good bringing-up, to keep him from the idle young men of the neighbourhood.’
‘You must make him write and tell her at once—you must, you must!’ almost sobbed out Miss Leland.
‘I promise,’ he answered.