The judge could not forbear the humorous view. “Perhaps she’s getting wickeder, or not so innocent. At any rate, she doesn’t seem to have been take in by Trannel.”
“He didn’t pay any attention to her. He was all taken up with Lottie.”
“Well, that was lucky. Sarah,” said the judge, “do you think he is like Bittridge?”
“He’s made me think of him all the time.”
“It’s curious,” the judge mused. “I have always noticed how our faults repeat themselves, but I didn’t suppose our fates would always take the same shape, or something like it.” Mrs. Kenton stared at him. “When this other one first made up to us on the boat my heart went down. I thought of Bittridge so.”
“Mr. Breckon?”
“Yes, the same lightness; the same sort of trifling—Didn’t you notice it?”
“No—yes, I noticed it. But I wasn’t afraid for an instant. I saw that he was good.”
“Oh!”
“What I’m afraid of now is that Ellen doesn’t care anything about him.”