"That's all right, then," she replied. "And next time there must be no interruptions. I won't have you going off to Granville Square or anywhere. You won't care to do so. It isn't as if there were daughters in the family," and here there was a touch of inquiry in her tone; "that reminds me, by the way, that before you come again, I want to hunt up a few--even one or two--girl friends for you. You see I could scarcely do so before, till I knew you a little better and could judge what your tastes were, and so on."
"And the sort of girl friends you thought I needed! Evidently they will not be of the ultra-serious order," I reflected, with a little secret amusement. But aloud I just laughed, and begged my godmother to believe that no girl friends she could possibly hunt up or down for me would suit me half or a quarter as well as her own charming young-hearted self. "I have Isabel Wynyard now," I said, "and I do feel that she has made me much more like other people--other girls, I mean."
Lady Bretton glanced at me with affectionate approval.
"I don't think, dear," she said, "that in my eyes there would ever have been much room for improvement or alteration for the better, though I am sure--I knew her mother a little, you know--that Isabel must be a thoroughly nice companion for you. I only hope that some day--"
"What?" I said, my curiosity aroused. "Do go on, dear godmother. I could never mind anything you would say."
She laughed, but there was a little constraint in her manner.
"I was only going to--to express a hope," she resumed, "that some day you may meet somebody as desirable for a different kind of companion as Isabel Wynyard is in _her_ way. A commonplace thing to say, and certainly in your case there is time enough! Don't be in a hurry about it, my dear."
It was not for a moment or two that I took in the drift of her remark, and she laughed again, this time more heartily, at my perplexed expression. I think she was pleased to see my entire absence of self-consciousness. But when her meaning became clear to me, and I turned it over in my mind after we got home, I felt a little surprised. What could she have got into her head to cause any allusion of the kind? I could not make it out.