All this was sufficiently exciting to poor Miss Dodd, but what was her horror, her horror mingled with astonishment, when she heard that, like the heroines in the story books, she too had a detested rival. Till now Anastatia Dodd had not known what it was to detest anybody, but her sister-in-law pointed out to her that detestation was her duty; that Miss Hood was but a ravening and roaring lion seeking to devour the old squire, and then to pick his bones. Unconsciously, as she stood by her sister-in-law's bed, Cecilia Dodd assumed the awful pose, the statuesque attitude, of the Judith at the bedside of Holofernes of her former days; her hand, as it grasped the brass ball at the foot of the bed, seemed to be clutching the head of her victim. Poor Anastatia, as a hare nestles in its form, had almost shrunk beneath the bed-clothes.
"It is your duty, my dear," said Judith, "to rescue this man from the hands of the harpy at The Warren. He has evidently loved you for years, Anastatia; it is your duty; and your brother feels deeply in the matter, more deeply than I do, my dear; we are but weak women, he is a clergyman, and, I regret to add, a man of the world. You must, of course, give Mr. Warrender every encouragement. And do not forget that your brother is the head of the family, the master of this house, a clergyman, and a man of the world. He will not see you wronged."
The vicar's wife left the room and her trembling victim. The voice of duty called her to the kitchen, where her cook patiently awaited her inevitable, and always painful, audience.
In the meanwhile, Squire Warrender and Miss Hood pursued the even tenour of their ways at The Warren; frequent letters from his daughter, describing the delights of their foreign tour, cheered the old man. All unconsciously, the squire sent his hares and his pheasants to the vicar's wife, his peaches and his flowers to her sister-in-law. In his cracked old voice, he still paid his Grandisonian compliments to the two ladies. He was somewhat surprised perhaps to notice that Miss Dodd was by degrees abandoning her semi-religious garb; and that his visits to the two ladies invariably procured him the pleasure of tête-à-tête interviews with the spinster. He noticed too that the vicar's sister now shook hands with him with an unwonted pressure. One afternoon he actually came home with a button-hole, a white passion flower, which the trembling fingers of Miss Dodd had placed in his coat.
"'Pon my word," he said to Miss Hood, wearing this decoration as they took their habitual cup of tea together, "I really think that Stacey Dodd gets younger every day."
Miss Hood pricked up her ears. Was the hale old gentleman going to make a fool of himself after all?
Old Mrs. Wurzel and the buxom Miss Grains sat in the little room at the vicarage, which was known to everybody as Mrs. Dodd's own room. The vicar's wife sat before a huge book, in front of her were little piles of copper money. She and her two visitors, and, of course, the vicar ex-officio, formed the committee of the village coal club. After much counting and recounting of the coppers, the total was pronounced correct, and the real work for which the ladies had met was over. The window of the room commanded a view of the lovely old-fashioned garden, which had been the care and pride of many successive vicars of King's Warren. The close-shaven lawn had the inevitable sun dial in its centre. The garden was not at its best, for the trees had not yet commenced to bud, but it was a fine clear day, and the trim little figure of the vicar's sister was seen briskly pacing up and down the well-kept walks.
"I don't think your sister-in-law seems to care so much for parish work as once she did, Mrs. Dodd," remarked the old lady to the vicar's wife.
"No, poor thing, I fear she has anxieties of her own just now, she seeks solitude a good deal."
"Is there any attachment, dear Mrs. Dodd?" said Mrs. Wurzel with interest.