The letters and the calls of sympathy were most gratifying, as showing the high esteem in which the late Rector, and his family, were held. One of the first to call was Mrs. Carruthers, from Surley Park. There had been a coolness, but death overrode everything.
The sisters were writing letters at the dining-room table.
"We had better go in together," said Rhoda. "It will be less awkward."
"If she doesn't say anything I don't see why we should," said Ethel. "Let bygones be bygones, I say, at a time like this."
"I wonder if the Bishop has said anything to her," said Rhoda, as they went across the hall together. The Bishop of the Diocese was Mrs. Carruthers's uncle.
Mrs. Carruthers was very young and very pretty; too young, the Misses Cooper were accustomed to say, and perhaps too pretty, though there might be two opinions about that, to be mistress of a property like Surley, which had been left to her unconditionally by her husband. The old Rector had been fond of her before the dispute had parted the Park and the Rectory, and even afterwards, for its details had been kept from him, and he had not realised that the break had been so complete as it actually had been.
Nothing was said about the cause of dispute, which had been concerned with the 'goings on' of a dairy-maid at Surley Park. There had been an episode with a young man, and the Misses Cooper, very stern upon keeping the morals of the parish up to concert pitch, had fastened themselves upon it firmly. But it was not the dairy-maid who had been concerned in the episode, and they and Mrs. Carruthers had differed as to the relative importance of their unfortunate mistake and of the fact that there had undoubtedly been something to complain of somewhere.
There were tears in Ella Carruthers's eyes as she came forward to meet the two sisters. "Oh, I am so sorry," she said. "The dear old man! Of course one knew the end must be coming, but it doesn't make it less hard to bear."
Rhoda and Ethel had tears too, to meet this. They had begun almost to enjoy the bustle, but were glad to be able to show that the sadder softer feelings still had sway with them. They were also relieved at the final disappearance of the coolness between themselves and their neighbour. There had been a formal mending of the breach some months before, but they had not been in her house since, nor she in theirs. Soon they were talking to her about their father as if they had always been friends, and she was giving them genuine consolation by the affection she showed herself to have entertained towards him. Their feelings grew warmer, especially when she said, after they had talked about the old Rector for some time: "I do hope Denis will succeed him. I am sure that is what he would most have liked."