“Austin,” said my mother at last, “I fear it is for my sake that you refuse going amongst your old friends: you knew I should be frightened by such fine people, and—”
“And we have been happy for more than eighteen years without them, Kitty! My poor friends are not happy, and we are. To leave well alone is a golden rule worth all in Pythagoras. The ladies of Bubastis, my dear,—a place in Egypt where the cat was worshipped,—always kept rigidly aloof from the gentlemen in Athribis, who adored the shrew-mice. Cats are domestic animals, your shrew-mice are sad gadabouts: you can’t find a better model, any Kitty, than the ladies of Bubastis!”
“How Trevanion is altered!” said Roland, musingly,—“he who was so lively and ardent!”
“He ran too fast up-hill at first, and has been out of breath ever since,” said my father.
“And Lady Ellinor,” said Roland, hesitatingly, “shall you see her to-morrow?”
“Yes!” said my father, calmly.
As Captain Roland spoke, something in the tone of his question seemed to flash a conviction on my mother’s heart, the woman there was quick; she drew back, turning pale even in the moonlight, and fixed her eyes on my father, while I felt her hand, which had clasped mine, tremble convulsively.
I understood her. Yes, this Lady Ellinor was the early rival whose name till then she had not known. She fixed her eyes on my father; and at his tranquil tone and quiet look she breathed more freely, and, sliding her hand from mine, rested it fondly on his shoulder. A few moments afterwards, I and Captain Roland found ourselves standing alone by the window.
“You are young, nephew,” said the Captain, “and you have the name of a fallen family to raise. Your father does well not to reject for you that opening into the great world which Trevanion offers. As for me, my business in London seems over: I cannot find what I came to seek. I have sent for my daughter; when she arrives I shall return to my old tower, and the man and the ruin will crumble away together.”
“Tush, uncle! I must work hard and get money; and then we will repair the old tower and buy back the old estate. My father shall sell the red brick house; we will fit him up a library in the keep; and we will all live united, in peace, and in state, as grand as our ancestors before us.”