Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/134

 were all that she needed. I was not sorry to have a few days’ rest too. First Will and then Culroyd. . . I found my little visitor a greater strain than I had anticipated. . . My “rest” was “nothing to write home about”, as Will used to say, for I found myself required to cope with a lioness which had been robbed of its cub—Culroyd, I mean. He came as usual expecting to see Hilda—and pretending he only wanted to see his poor old aunt! And left the moment he had swallowed his coffee! It’s a good thing I’m not vain, isn’t it? Next day he came again. . . At first it was habit, I think; he had got into the way of meeting this child every day. Then it became more serious. If we are going to bless this union, I think we must also bless Hilda’s influenza. (It developed into that. And a nice time I had! Responsible to her mother—and day after day the girl refused to see a doctor.) These boys and girls go about together so freely that there is little inducement to bring things to a head, as it were. Goodness me, when I first met Arthur, he would have liked to go about with me everywhere, but my dear mother put her foot down very firmly on that. And, when he found that it was almost impossible for us to meet, Arthur suddenly discovered that I meant more to him than he had suspected. . . So with Culroyd; history