“You want to show off your new boots; I know your vanity,” he retorted as he sprang out.
The church being central was fuller than most country churches, and attended by many of the county families. As the Monkswood party walked up the aisle every eye was turned on them with unconcealed curiosity. With Lady Fairfax’s appearance all were familiar, but which of these two young men was the roving husband? “The elder of the two, of course; he was dark and bronzed, and looked like a soldier; the other was a youth.” N.B.—Geoffrey, although three-and-twenty, looked about nineteen.
The Fairfaxes formed a topic of discourse at many a luncheon-table that day.
“Did you see Lady Fairfax in church, and her husband?” said one young lady.
“How do you know which was her husband, or if he was there at all?” replied her mother, who, with bonnet-strings thrown back, was making an ample meal. “I don’t believe he has come back one bit.”
“Oh, but he has,” persisted her daughter; “their coachman told Brown; he arrived last Monday, and that was him sitting next the door.”
“Pray how do you know?”
“Because he found the hymns for her, and gave her a hassock.”
“Weighty reasons certainly. It is much more likely, from what you say, that he is not her husband. You never see your father finding my place or giving me a footstool,” returned the old lady, as she tossed off a glass of sherry and looked round as much as to say, “This argument is a clincher.”
“Well, but when the offertory-bag came round I saw her get very red, as if she had forgotten her purse, and he slipped a sovereign into her hand.”