[CHAPTER II.]
A PLEASANT HOUR.
CLARICE EGERTON was the fourth child of the couple who so rashly settled themselves in Ballintra. The three children who were born before her were very like their mother in appearance. But Clarice was an Egerton, and, more than that, she was lovely Clarice Egerton over again; and for this reason, she was the only one of his children of whom Guy Egerton ever took the slightest notice.
Time and disappointment had not improved him. Long before the birth of his fourth child, he had discovered that farmers are not born ready-made, or that if they are, he was not one of the number; and he had bought this piece of knowledge at the expense of every penny of his wife's money, besides getting into debt and living in a scrambling fashion, which was a continual misery to him.
His lovely little baby-faced wife was even more changed than he. She was so young at the time of her marriage that she had actually grown since then, and was now a tall, pale woman, with a few silver threads in her abundant light-brown hair, and a sad pair of blue-grey eyes looking out from a face no longer young. Poor, pretty Elise! She had long ago discovered that she had nothing in common with her husband, and that he had not that love for her which would have drawn them together. He was never unkind, but he rarely spoke to her.
His time, when in the house, was spent in reading (he had plenty of books, for he had been all his life buying them, and his brother had sent them to him some years before this), writing, and dreaming; and, for any good he did when out about the farm, he might as well have spent all his waking hours in these more congenial pursuits.
Elise never complained. She possessed a wonderful force of character, and more cleverness than her husband ever gave her credit for, in proof of which I may mention that she learned English so thoroughly that no one would have suspected that it was not her native language, and that she taught herself enough to enable her to teach her children, and this without other help than the use of good books and an occasional question asked of her husband. She never complained, as I have said, but she watched and observed; and, being a peasant by birth, she often felt sure that she could have managed the farm better than her husband did.
But, at first, he would not allow her to do anything—there were servants to do the work, and she must learn to be a lady. But those days were long past when Clarice was born. One elderly, rough-looking woman—Katty Simnott by name—formed the whole establishment then, and Katty had become so fond of "the misthress an' the children, God bless them!" that I believe she considered herself one of the family. As to her master, she was wont to remark that "Shure he was nawthin' on earth but an English Omadahn, and what would yez expect ov him?"
Little Clarice was named after her long-lost aunt by her father's desire; and a lovely, healthy, noisy creature she was. The next child was a boy, and, like Clarice, he was an Egerton in appearance; but beyond giving him his own name, Mr. Egerton (as I must now begin to call him) never took the least notice of him. Clarice was the only child he ever did notice, in fact.