“Very sensible, elderly and gray-haired,” he replied. But it did not occur to him to mention that this was not the veritable tenant, only her representative.
Mr. Eyrle heard when they arrived, and then, after the usual comfortable manner of his sex, thought no more of them.
One May morning, shortly after Sir Ronald Alden had left home, Kenelm received a letter. He recognized the handwriting as that of his tenant, Mrs. Payton. It was a letter any tenant might have addressed to a landlord—simply asking permission to have a large bay window thrown out of the drawing-room.
“Of course,” he said to himself, “she may have bay windows all over the house, if she likes,” and his consent was so heartily given in his own mind he neglected to write and assure her of it. Thereupon came a second letter, and Kenelm’s heart reproached him.
“She will think I have neglected her,” he said, “and I had no such thought. I must go over, I suppose, and apologize.”
He went. The wind was blowing from the pine woods, the lilac and laburnum were all in flower, the mavis was singing in the trees, all nature was gay and smiling. His heart went back, with a dreary, discontented sigh to the thought of Clarice in her grave, shut out forever from all the fair loveliness of earth and sky. The grounds about the Dower House were very pleasant. He thought to himself as he walked through them that one might be very happy there. He was shown into a cool, shady, fragrant parlor, where the vases were filled with great boughs of laburnums and plumes of lilac; there an elderly lady was seated, who rose at his approach, and bowed to him.
“Mrs. Payton, I believe,” he said.
She looked in his face with a frank smile.
“Oh, no,” she replied. “I am Mrs. Payton’s representative. I know of no better word.”
He smiled, too, at her frank simplicity.