"Well—it's true! You had been, and you know you had."
"Had been what?"
"Acting Moorhouse and Aminta Dorrington."
"That's not the way you put it. But I don't care about that. It's only your silliness and inexperience makes you say these things...."
"What is it you do care about, then?"
"I won't submit to be catechized, Sibyl. But I'll tell you. I do care about what the madre thinks—and papa. And I shall tell her.... I wonder who that can be?"
The "that" in question was a knock at the front door, one that expressed confidence that it was at the right house, and even that it would find someone at home—well-founded confidence in both cases. For the Miss Arkroyds, listening for the identity of the abnormal visitor—at ten o'clock in the morning!—only wait for a barely perceptible instalment of voice and footstep to exclaim jointly: "The Rector ... just fancy—what can he want?... In here, Elphinstone!" And it may be neither is sorry for the interruption. How very frequently a visitor is the resolution of a family discord! Judith, pale with suppressed anger, recovers her colour. Sibyl's flush of excitement dies.
It is the Rector of Royd, no doubt of that! And something equivalent to a breeze of fresh air, or the tide in an estuary, or the new crackle of a clean pine-wood fire—but not exactly any one of the three—comes into the room with him and his laugh. He has an effect that is usual with him. The under-housemaid, who has passed him on to Mr. Elphinstone, hopes she won't have done dusting when he comes out. Mr. Elphinstone is seriously hurt at his having breakfasted three hours ago and now refusing food, which would have promoted their intercourse; and the young ladies are not sorry, on inquiry, to hear that her ladyship is not coming down, but will have her breakfast upstairs, because thereby they will have the Rev. Athelstan all to themselves longer.
However, they chorus sorrow which they don't feel about their mother; and affect an equally hypocritical satisfaction at a probable appearance of their father, which they don't believe in.
"You'll see papa will come in presently and say he never heard the bell." Thus Judith, who shows her pack by adding: "Now do let's talk and be comfortable till he comes." All right—nem. con.!