Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/176

 Margrave looked at her a moment with an expression which was at first perplexed, and also a trifle disconcerted before he obediently went back to Cecily.

Five years difference in the ages of two girls is not too much to admit the possibility of intimate friendship. Not that this was the term which could, with any appropriateness, describe the relation between Cecily and Gretchen Verrol, though they were constantly together, and though Gretchen, and all that she did, occupied, or at any rate till quite recently had occupied, nearly the whole of Cecily's mental horizon.

Gretchen Verrol was a distant cousin of Mrs. Armstrong, for whom circumstances had rendered it unavoidable to do something in the way of help.

Most fortunately, both for herself and for the Armstrongs, it happened that Gretchen was clever and accomplished—"the very companion we could have chosen for our dear Cecily," as her mother frequently observed. This being the case, matters were easily arranged, and for a year previous to Cecily's engagement, Miss Verrol had lived with the Armstrongs, "reading" with Cecily, helping her with her music, and generally "forming her taste," as Mrs. Armstrong again frequently, if somewhat vaguely, remarked.

Mrs. Armstrong was a slightly vague person altogether, but kindly-natured and easy-going. Her one positive emotion being admiration for her young cousin, who soon held a very important, if not the most important, position in the household.

Whether her engagement had done anything towards lessening the exalted opinion of Gretchen which Cecily shared with her mother was a doubtful question.

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