“You speak as if they had been the objects of your observation for years.” “No, not for years, of course; but when you live opposite to people for a fortnight, you find out a great deal about them. You know you have been away, Lucy. She reads a great deal, and I have seen her out sketching, and sometimes she talks to the poor people; but she looks shy and frightened. Whenever she sees me she hurries away.” “And you have not called? I wonder you did not call when you take so much interest in her,” said Lucy, taking up her little basket again, and preparing to go. “Do you think I ought to call?” cried Cousin Julia eagerly. “I have been turning it over and over in my own mind. I wonder if I ought to call, I have been saying to Sam. What would your mamma think, I wonder? You see, they have no introductions, no one to be, as it were, responsible for them; and they might be something very different, they might be not at all nice people for anything we can tell.” “How unkind of you to imagine evil! Why shouldn’t they be nice people? I am afraid you are beginning to be hardhearted,” said Lucy, laughing. “Mamma will be very much surprised to hear that you have not called, I am sure.” “Do you really think so? I am _dying_ to call,” cried Mrs. Rolt. “Hard-hearted--me! Oh, Lucy, how can you say so? When you know it is chiefly on your account that your mamma may always be quite certain you will meet no one whom you ought not to meet here.” “I should like to meet her very much,” said Lucy, offering her pretty cheek for Cousin Julia’s kiss. “I shall come back for some luncheon if you will have me, and then you can tell me all the rest. My people will be waiting now.” Mrs. Rolt stood at the window and looked after her admiringly as she went away. Such a young creature--to do so much--and to keep the parish together. But then the good woman reflected that she had now said this of Lucy for some years, and counting back, decided that she must be twenty-three--not so very young to be still unmarried, for Sir John Curtis’s daughter, who might marry anybody. “I wonder if there is _some one_,” said Cousin Julia to herself, making a private review in her own mind of all the gentlemen she knew--which took her thoughts off the new-comer in Wren Cottage, though she might already be seen at the window gazing out with a certain eagerness, and showing more than one ear.