“Thou darest not. Thou knowest it would make thee turn round and vote with the Reformers.”
“Roast the Reformers! I wish I could! I would not have believed thou couldst have said such a thing, Maude. How darest thou even think of thy husband as a turncoat? Why, in politics, it is the unpardonable sin.”
“It is nothing of the kind. Not it! It is far worse to stick to a sin, than to turn from it. If I was the biggest of living Tories, and I found out I was wrong, I would stand up before all England and turn my coat in the sight of everybody. I would that. When I read thy name against Mr. Brougham bringing up Reform, I’ll swear I could have cried for it!”
“I wouldn’t wonder. All the fools are not dead yet. But I hear Kitty and her lover coming. I wonder what they are talking and laughing about?”
“Thou hadst better not ask them. I’ll warrant, Piers is telling her the same sort of nonsense, thou usedst to tell me; and they will both of them, believe it, no doubt.”
At these words Piers and Kate entered the room together. They were going for a gallop in the Park; and they looked so handsome, and so happy, that neither the Squire nor Mrs. Atheling could say a word to dash their pleasure. The Squire, indeed, reminded Piers that the House met at two o’clock; and Piers asked blankly, like a man who neither knew, nor cared anything about the House, “Does it?” With the words on his lips, he turned to Kate, and smiling said, “Let us make haste, my dear. The morning is too fine to lose.” And hand in hand, they said a hasty, joyful “good-bye” and disappeared. The father and mother watched them down the street until they were out of sight. As they turned away from the window, their eyes met, and Mrs. Atheling smiled. The Squire looked abashed and disconcerted.
“Why didst not thou put a stop to such nonsense, John?” she asked.
Fortunately at this moment a servant entered to tell the Squire his horse was waiting, and this interruption, and a rather effusive parting, let him handsomely out of an embarrassing answer.
Then Mrs. Atheling wrote a long letter to her son, and looked after the ways of her household, and knit a few rounds on her husband’s hunting stocking, and as she did so thought of Kate’s future, and got tired of trying to settle it, and so left it, as a scholar leaves a difficult problem, for the Master to solve. And when she had reached this point Kate came into the room. She had removed her habit, and the joyous look which had been so remarkable two hours before was all gone. The girl was dashed and weary, and her mother asked her anxiously, “If she was sick?”
“No,” she answered; “but I have been annoyed, and my heart is heavy, and I am tired.”