CHAPTER EIGHT.

A TEMPTING TEA.

Mrs Fortescue's morning had been so exciting that she really could not settle down at searching through her house linen for possible or impossible holes during the afternoon. It was her bounden duty to go to see the Arbuthnots. She ought to visit them after the delightful dinner they had given her on Christmas Day. Accordingly, putting on her most becoming dress, she started off between three and four o'clock in the direction of their house. She must meet the train which would bring her darlings back to her between six and seven, but during the intervening hours she might spend her time quite comfortably with Susie, chatting to her, of course--not on _the_ subject, but on every possible subject which led towards it, approaching it, as it were, by every devious path within her knowledge.

Susie was upright, honest as the day. Mrs Fortescue was a crooked-minded woman; but very straight people are, as a rule, apt not to see the crookedness of their friends. Susie liked every one at Langdale, just as much as the Colonel liked them. She was heartily pleased to see her friend, and told her so, frankly. Susie was not wearing her grey barege, and the supporting silk lining could not therefore sustain her; but she was very neatly dressed in an old black serge which she had altered with her own clever fingers, and which fitted her plump form to perfection. Round her neck she were a neat linen collar, and had linen cuffs round her plump wrists. Her hands were ringless and very fat. Her face, always highly coloured, was a little redder than usual, because she had been taking advantage of the fine morning and spending it in the garden. She loved gardening, and there was not a day, either summed or winter, which did not give her something to do in her favourite employment.

"Now," she said, when she saw Mrs Fortescue; "this _is_ good! You have come to tea, of course. I will order some hot cakes. They can be made in a twinkling. I have desired cook to do them from a new recipe which I happened to cut out of a penny paper last week. How nice you look, Mrs Fortescue! and how are the darling girls? What a decided beauty Florence is turning into!"

"Of course you know," said Mrs Fortescue, throwing meaning into her tone, "that both girls went to London this morning to spend the day with their guardian and lawyer, Mr Timmins, of Pye's Court."

"No, I didn't know it," said Susie. Then she added, seeing that something was expected of her: "Did they go alone?"

"Well, they went together first-class, and were met at the station by Mr Timmins' confidential clerk. They are coming back to night."

"Dear children!" said Susie, in her sweet voice. "I am so fond of them both."

"And they are fond of you, Susie."

"I wonder what they will do in the future," said Susie. "Is it really true that they have left school?"

"Yes, it is quite true," said Mrs Fortescue. "I am sorry," answered Susie.

"Sorry? What do you mean? Florence is eighteen and Brenda nineteen."

"Yes," said Susie; "but one only begins to appreciate school at that age. Before, one is too young and lessons seem a useless drudgery. One's mind is not big enough or broad enough to take in the advantages of learning. It is a great, great pity that Mr Timmins does not give them two more years at Newnham or Girton or some such place."

"Oh, my dear?" said Mrs Fortescue, throwing up her hands. "How can you say anything so horrible! Newnham or Girton! They would be simply ruined; and men do so hate learned women."

"Do they?" said Susie. She paused reflectively. "I have known one or two," she said, after a pause, "whom men have loved very much. I don't think it is the learning part that men hate; it is something else which now and then the learned woman possesses. Perhaps it is pride in her own attainments. Surely no sensible man can dislike a woman for knowing things."

"They do--they all do," said Mrs Fortescue. "My dear late lamented