"
"Oh, no! None of _our_ friends know her," Miss Holgate broke in with a
relish.
The elder girl frowned at this indiscreet remark, and interrupted it
with grave remonstrance, saying
"Hush, Edith! You shouldn't talk quite so plainly," then with a
wonderful tact in one so young she lit up her face with a happy
expression, appropriate to her change of subject, and asked:
"Where does Mrs. Hampden think of spending the summer, this year?"
I could vouch no information on this point, as, I had not troubled to
put the question to my step-mother myself, and so, after relating to
me in a somewhat confidential tone, all the plans and projects which
her Mama and her Aunt Ada had arranged for their holiday season, and
their strong temptation to try Riviere du Loup, where so many
fashionable people were said to be retiring just then, she finally
arose, and with an emphasized request that I would "run in" without
the least ceremony, to see her at any time, she bowed herself most
gracefully out of the room, followed by her younger and less
sophisticated relative.
I need hardly say what turn the rising tide of my impressions and
opinions took about this time. To one who had passed from the
cheerless, loveless guardianship of a worldly step-mother, into the
tender hands of patient and devoted sisters, to become, instead of a
wandering, uncared for waif, the object of the truest and holiest
solicitude that ever animated Christian hearts, this hollow mockery of
fashionable life was nothing more than a matchless absurdity.
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