Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
be summoning the entire family, when, so far as I could make out, Hilary had not said a word. . .
“So you are expecting Colonel Butler,” I said to her at tea.
“He’s coming to-day,” she answered rather brusquely. “I thought he might have been here by now. . . Well, Aunt Ann, was I wise to wait? You told me to go right away and forget him; you always said you wanted to turn my thoughts.”
Do you know, for a dreadful moment I fancied that she was trying to reopen her insane vendetta. . . When she circulated those truly wicked stories about me. . .
“Dear Phyllida,” I said, “did I ever try to shake your faith in him? No one, not even you, has a greater admiration or regard for Colonel Butler; he has done me more than one inestimable service, and I think he would be the first to admit that he owes something to my friendship and advice. Ask him, dear child! I have nothing to fear from his testimony; but there is a right way and a wrong way in most things, and he will tell you that, on my advice, he chose the right. If I urged your father to send you away, if I tried to the best of my poor abilities to distract your thoughts, it was because I could not bear to
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