Moore and I had been a long walk – it was delightful to see how the boy’s strength was returning – and when we came in, we found mother seated as usual at the wide window of our cheerful little sitting-room overlooking the “square,” with its gardens in the centre, which was the great feature of the little town. She looked up brightly as we came in – not that that was in any way remarkable – when did mother not greet us brightly? – her face full of interest as if she had something pleasant to tell, which set at rest my fears that our long absence might have made her anxious.
“I have been amusing myself,” she said, “by watching some new arrivals at this hotel. I saw them first in the courtyard when I was coming in from my walk, and something about them struck me at once. They looked so much more interesting than the other people here.”
“Are they English?” I asked. “Certainly, the other English here still are the stupidest of the stupid. Not one young person among them.”
I sat down as I spoke, for I was feeling rather tired, and quite ready for a little gossip.
“Oh, but,” said mother, “you won’t have to complain of that any more. Two, at least, are quite young, – sisters evidently, both very pretty, the younger one especially – she doesn’t look much older than you, Regina – an elderly father, and another man, about thirty I should say, the brother, or possibly the husband, of the elder girl. I had only a glimpse of them at first, but since then I have been watching them from the window. They have been strolling all over the place, peering in at all the little shops in the square, so delighted with the novelty of everything evidently, as if they had never been abroad before. The one that took my fancy so specially was the younger one. I never saw a sweeter face!”
“We must find out who they are,” I said; “but you know, mamma, I never care much about making friends with other girls; I understand boys so much better.”
“And they’re so much nicer,” added Moore; “girls are so – so affected and stuck-up, except, of course, Reggie.”
We laughed.
“What do you know about them?” I said. “Less even than I!”
“I know what the fellows at school say about their sisters. Of course they are very fond of them – lots of them, at least – and some of them are very jolly about games and things like that. But they do sit upon their brothers all the same. Lots do!”
“Perhaps it is not a very bad thing for the brothers sometimes,” said mother. “I often wish you had had a sister, Regina, or failing that, a few really nice girl friends. Even one would be a great advantage to you.”
I felt just a little nettled. Dear mother sometimes took up an idea too enthusiastically, and I did not in those days perhaps sufficiently appreciate the steady good judgment underlying her apparent impulsiveness.
“Oh, mamma,” I said, “things are all right as they are. I don’t want a sister, and I never have wanted one. And if we make friends with these people who have struck you so, please let it be in a general way. I don’t want any girl friend?”
“You are certainly very premature?” said mother, smiling. “Probably enough they are only here for a night on their way somewhere else; and even if they were staying here, it by no means follows that we should become acquainted at all, though I own to being unusually attracted by their faces and general look. There was something pretty about the whole group.”
Mother’s gentleness disarmed me, as it always did. I felt a little ashamed of myself. Nor was I, to tell the truth, devoid of curiosity as to these newcomers. It is almost laughable to find how, in a temporarily restricted life, such as one leads at a quiet watering-place, one’s dormant love of gossip and inquisitiveness about one’s neighbours assert themselves!
Yes, there they were! I “spotted” them at once, as Moore would have said, when we entered the long dining-room, where supper was served at separate tables to each little party, and in my heart I at once endorsed mother’s opinion. They were all so nice-looking and so happy. The elder of the two girls – for a girl she looked – I almost immediately decided must be the wife of the younger man; something indefinable in his attitude and tone towards her suggesting a husband rather than a brother. The father, an elderly man, with grey hair, and delicate, somewhat wasted features, whose expression told of much sorrow, past rather than present, was not the least attractive of the quartette; his face lighted up with a charming smile when he spoke to or glanced at his daughters, both of whom, as mother had said, were decidedly pretty.
No, that is not the word for the younger one; “lovely,” suits her far better, and before I had been five minutes in the same room with her, I more than endorsed mother’s opinion.
“She is perfectly sweet,” I thought to myself. “I wonder what her name is, and I wonder if we shall get to know them. I don’t know that I wish it; I am perfectly sure she would not care for me. I would just seem a sort of tomboy to her. She looks so dreadfully – just what she should look! Such dear little white hands!” and I glanced at my own brown fingers and thought of my sunburnt face, with, for almost the first time in my life, a touch of shame. After all, perhaps mamma was in the right in her advocacy of parasols and veils, and above all, gloves!
Then the sound of the voices which reached us from the newcomers’ table struck me with a sense of contrast, not altogether flattering to myself. The tones were so soft though clear, the slight laughter breaking out from time to time so gentle though gay, and entirely unaffected.
“Yes,” I replied in answer to mother’s – “Well, what do you think of them?” – as we were slowly making our way upstairs again to our own quarters, “Yes, you were quite right, mamma; they are most attractive-looking people, and the little one is the prettiest person I have ever seen. But I don’t want to get to know them! They wouldn’t care for us, at least not for me. Of course they would like you, and they would feel bound to be polite to me, which I should hate.”
Mother only smiled. She very often only smiled when I began what she called “working myself up” for no cause at all. But in her heart I think – indeed she owned to it afterwards – she was not a little pleased at the impression which she saw had already been made upon me.
“I daresay they’ll be gone by to-morrow; I hope they will,” said Moore consolingly. He was always so extraordinarily quick in perceiving any little thing that annoyed me. “I don’t see anything so wonderful about that girl,” he went on; “she is just a dressed-up sort of young lady. I am perfectly certain she can’t play cricket or ride a pony bare-back like you, Reggie.”
“I daresay not,” I said. “And I almost wish I couldn’t!” I added to myself rather ruefully.
But to-morrow came and they were not gone, nor apparently had they any intention of leaving, for we overheard them talking about excursions they were proposing to make in the neighbourhood, and the words “next week” occurred more than once.
I felt rather cross and dissatisfied that day, I remember. Perhaps I had over-walked myself – very probably so; and now and then I caught mamma’s eyes glancing at me with a somewhat perturbed expression.
“Are you not feeling well, Regina?” she said at last, when I had answered some little question rather snappishly, I fear.
“Of course I am quite well, mother, dear,” I replied; “I am only rather cross, and I don’t know why. I would rather you would scold me than seem anxious about me! Everybody has moods. I – well, yes, perhaps I was thinking a little about that girl. It must be nice to be so graceful and charming?”
“My poor, dear child,” said mother, “don’t distress yourself so needlessly! You know very well we would rather have our tomboy than any other girl in the world, though there is no reason why you should not be graceful and charming too, in your own way. You are very young still;