uld look at her with the eyes of
Jacques....

The girl, she had believed, must be still too young for any thought of
marriage. But was she? Was she? The Leigh women matured early. She
herself had been quite ready for marriage at seventeen. As for Philip,
how was it with him?

From the day she had brought him home with her from his boarding-school,
a sensitive, lonely lad of fourteen, he had been like a big brother to
her children; at first their guardian playfellow, sharing with them his
lore of field and wood and stream; later their tutor, during the months
when he was not absent at the seminary which the old rector of the
parish had persuaded him to enter; later still, their spiritual adviser
and director, exercising over them a certain quiet authority which
amused their mother but which was not resented in the least by either of
the high-spirited girls. He and Jemima were excellent friends, or had
been until her recent discovery about his father. It was to the older
girl he turned for assistance in parish matters, and Kate realized that
Jemima was far better fitted than her light-hearted sister for the
manifold duties of a clergyman's wife. But from the first, little
Jacqueline had been his especial pet and comrade--possibly because of
her resemblance to her mother. They rode together, sang together, read
together, even quarreled together, with a familiarity which shocked
Jemima's inborn respect for "the Cloth".... Had there been always in
this marked favoritism the germ of love? the mother wondered.

Of late Philip had been more at the house even than usual. He dropped in
at all hours of the day with the excuse of books to be brought, new
music to be tried, matters of many sorts to be discussed. It reminded
Kate a little sadly of the days when his father had found just such
excuses to spend his time at Storm. To be sure, he rarely found
Jacqueline at home, and as Jemima systematically avoided him nowadays,
he was thrown almost entirely upon her own companionship. But Kate
easily persuaded herself that this was merely an accident, and one which
she might in future control.

Now that she had thought of it, she had twice lately met Philip with
Jacqueline, riding very slowly and in earnest conversation--those two,
who usually took the roads and the fields at a flying gallop, daring
each other on to further recklessness. Also, she recalled the last miles
of that journey from Frankfort, when the girl sat between them,