In something less than an hour they were all ready for a good dinner; their faces had been washed, Katherine’s hair smoothed and Madam’s cap properly adjusted. The squire was standing on the hearthrug in high spirits. The sight of his son, the touch of the town, the pleasant light and comfort of his surroundings, the prospect of dinner, made him forget for a few minutes the suffering he had passed through, until his son asked, “And did you have a pleasant journey, father?”
“A journey, Dick, to break a man’s heart. It hes turned me from a Tory into a Radical. This government must feed the people or—we will kick them back——”
“Dear father, we will talk of that subject by ourselves. It isn’t fit for two tired women, now is it?”
“Mebbe not; but I hev seen and I hev heard these last two or three days, Dick, what I can niver forget. Things hev got to be altered. They hev that, or——”
“We will talk that over after mother and Kitty have gone to sleep. We won’t worry them to-night. I have ordered mother’s favorite Cabinet pudding for her, and some raspberry cream for Kitty. It wouldn’t be right to talk of unhappy things with good things in our mouths, now would it?”
“They are coming. I can hear Kitty’s laugh, when I can hear nothing else. Ring the bell, Dick, we can hev dinner now.”
There were a few pleasant moments spent in choosing their seats, and as soon as they were taken, a dish of those small delicious oysters for which England has been famous since the days of the Roman Emperors were placed before them. “I had some scalloped for mother and Kitty,” Dick said. “Men can eat them raw, alive if they choose, but women—Oh no! It isn’t womanlike! Mother and Kitty wouldn’t do it! Not they!”
“And what else hes ta got for us, Dick?” asked the squire. “I’m mortal hungry.”
The last word shocked him anew. He wished he had not said it. What made him do it? Hungry! He had never been really hungry in all his life; and those pallid men and women, with that look of suffering on their faces, and in their dry, anxious eyes, how could he ever forget them?
He was suddenly silent, and Katherine said: “Father is tired. He would drive so much. I wonder the coachman let him.”