"Dear old Clara! Come and sit down here beside me. I have not had a chat
for days. But, oh, what a troubled face! What is it then?" She put up
her forefinger and smoothed her sister's brow with it.
Clara pulled up a stool, and sitting down beside her sister, passed her
arm round her waist. "I am so sorry to trouble you, dear Ida," she said.
"But I do not know what to do.
"There's nothing the matter with Harold?"
"Oh, no, Ida."
"Nor with my Charles?"
"No, no."
Ida gave a sigh of relief. "You quite frightened me, dear," said she.
"You can't think how solemn you look. What is it, then?"
"I believe that papa intends to ask Mrs. Westmacott to marry him."
Ida burst out laughing. "What can have put such a notion into your head,
Clara?"
"It is only too true, Ida. I suspected it before, and he himself almost
told me as much with his own lips to-night. I don't think that it is a
laughing matter."
"Really, I could not help it. If you had told me that those two dear old
ladies opposite, the Misses Williams, were both engaged, you would not
have surprised me more. It is really too funny."
"Funny, Ida! Think of any one taking the place of dear mother."
But her sister was of a more practical and less sentimental nature. "I
am sure," said she, "that dear mother would like papa to do whatever
would make him most happy. We shall both be away, and why should papa
not please himself?"
"But think how unhappy he will be. You know how quiet he is in his ways,
and how even a little thing will upset him. How could he live with a
wife who would make his whole life a series of surprises? Fancy what
a whirlwind she must be in a house. A man at his age cannot change his
ways. I am sure he would be miserable."
Ida's face grew graver, and she pondered over the matter for a few
minutes. "I really think that you are right as usual," said she at last.
"I admire Charlie's aunt very much, you know, and I think that she is
a very useful and good person, but I don't think she would do as a wife
for poor quiet papa."
"But he will certainly ask her, and I really think that she intends to
accept him. Then it would be too late to interfere. We have only a few
days at the most. And what can we do? How can we hope to make him change
his mind?"