Jack, who had been watching for an opportunity to make his voice heard.
"And we shall have cream every day, and see the pigs fed."

"Uncle James?" said Rhoda, looking at Mrs. M'Alister. A little shadow had
fallen on her face. Mrs. M'Alister's elder brother had been the only
person who had ever made her feel that she was an outsider and had no real
claim to the place she held in the family.

Mrs. M'Alister's anxious face had clouded over too. "My dear, I did not
want to speak of it till after tea. James is coming in again this evening,
when Ned is home. Jack and Willie, run and ask Mrs. Ellis if the kettle is
boiling yet. Rhoda will want some tea."

"I had tea before I came away," Rhoda said, as the boys ran off. "When did
Uncle James come, Aunt Mary?"

"This afternoon, dear. He got to London last night. And he went down to
the works this morning, and saw Ned and Mr. Howard. Oh, Rhoda, they want
Ned to go to Plymouth!"

Rhoda looked at her aunt. She understood now what those new lines of
anxiety in her face meant which she had noticed the moment she came in.
"To Plymouth, Aunt Mary? But that is a long way off."

"They have a branch there, and they want Ned to go. James says it is a
splendid thing for him. And he wants me to go down there and live with
him, Rhoda. His farm is only three miles from Plymouth."

She did not look at Rhoda as she spoke, but kept fingering the tablecloth
nervously, with her eyes cast down. For a few seconds Rhoda was silent.