“Your name is Rutherford, then?”
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE RED HOUSE.
WOODLEIGH was a very scattered village, numbering about one thousand inhabitants all told, yet containing only one double row of straggling houses, which might by courtesy be termed a street.
Woodleigh Hall stood well apart from this little central cluster, in its own grounds, on something of an eminence, from which views could be had of pretty and undulating country around.
George Rutherford’s father had inherited the place from a distant relative. Left at twenty-one, by his father’s death, in possession of the property, George had steered marvellously clear of the perils sure to assail a young man in such a position, owing much of his safety, under a higher Power, to the companionship of a wise and loving mother. Not until her death, in his thirty-third year, did George Rutherford begin to think seriously of finding a wife.
After considerable hesitation he had found one in Dulcibel Lloyd; not at all the kind of wife that any one would have expected him to choose, the very last person that anybody else would have chosen for him. But this was almost a matter of course. Men usually go contrary to expectations in such matters.[?]
And whether or no Dulcibel was able to give him all that he required, either in the way of heart or of intellect, he and she had been very happy together. The last seventeen years had gone by with smooth rapidity.
George Rutherford was a busy man; he always had been so, ever since he emerged from boyhood. Property brings responsibility with it, and George felt those responsibilities with all seriousness. Alike generous and tender-hearted, no case of need came within his ken to be passed over or put aside. Investigation was followed invariably by such assistance as seemed wise.
In these matters Dulcibel was a very meet help to her husband. She dearly loved to have half-a-dozen interesting “cases” on hand, and to be running hither and thither after them.