“My dear,” she said, “I begin to wish I'd adopted you myself. Perhaps, later on, we can find a husband for you, and you will marry and settle down near us here at Silverdale, and then you can help me with the work.”
“Oh, Mrs. Holt,” she replied, “I should so like to help you, I mean. And it would be wonderful to live in such a place. And as for marriage, it seems such a long way off that somehow I never think of it.”
“Naturally,” ejaculated Mrs. Holt, with approval, “a young girl of your age should not. But, my dear, I am afraid you are destined to have many admirers. If you had not been so well brought up, and were not naturally so sensible, I should fear for you.”
“Oh, Mrs. Holt!” exclaimed Honora, deprecatingly, and blushing very prettily.
“Whatever else I am,” said Mrs. Holt, vigorously, “I am not a flatterer. I am telling you something for your own good—which you probably know already.”
Honora was discreetly silent. She thought of the proud and unsusceptible George Hanbury, whom she had cast down from the tower of his sophomore dignity with such apparent ease; and of certain gentlemen at home, young and middle-aged, who had behaved foolishly during the Christmas holidays.
At lunch both the Roberts and the Joshuas were away.
Afterwards, they romped with the children—she and Susan. They were shy at first, especially the third Joshua, but Honora captivated him by playing two sets of tennis in the broiling sun, at the end of which exercise he regarded her with a new-born admiration in his eyes. He was thirteen.
“I didn't think you were that kind at all,” he said.
“What kind did you think I was?” asked Honora, passing her arm around his shoulder as they walked towards the house.