CHAPTER XXXIII. SIR WITHIN AND HIS WARD
How time has slipped over since we were last here, in the midst of the Welsh mountains! It is more than a year, but still wonderfully little has gone on in that interval. The larch-trees at Dalradern have added some palms to their stature, but the venerable oaks and elms disdain to show by change the influence of so brief a period, and, in the same way, it is in Kate alone—that plant of rapid growth—that we have much alteration to mark.
What a change has been wrought in her! It is not merely that she has grown into a tall and graceful girl, but that one by one the little traits of her peasant origin have faded away, and she looks, and seems, and carries herself with all the air of a high-born beauty. In her lofty brow, her calm features, her manner, in which a quiet dignity blends with a girlish grace, and, above all, in her voice singularly sweet-toned as it was, might be read every sign of that station men distinctively call the “best.”
Masters and professors of every kind had surrounded her, but she had a sort of indolent activity in her disposition, which tended little to the work of learning, while her quickness enabled her to pick up smatterings of many things. But, as she said herself, Sir Within was her best teacher. The old minister’s tact, his social readiness, his instinctive seizure of the nice points of every situation,—these were the gifts that had a special attraction for her; and while she was envying him the charm of a manner that could captivate all, from the highest to the humblest, she had actually acquired the gift and made it her own.
To recognise in her the traits on which he most prided himself, to see in that lovely girl his pupil in the arts of society, to mark in her a copyist of himself in the little tricks of manner and effect, was the greatest of all flatteries; and he never wearied of watching her repeating himself before him in a form so captivating and so graceful.
Although he had lost—and it was a loss he deplored—the friendly intercourse with the Vyners, and although the neighbourhood more strictly than ever quarantined him now, no representations nor remonstrances could prevail upon him to send Kate to a school, or to place her under other protection than his own. Innumerable were the governesses who had come down to take charge of her; none, however, remained long. Some alleged it was the solitude that oppressed them; others averred that their pupil would submit to no discipline but such as she liked, and that not alone the studies she would pursue, but even the hours she would devote to them, should be at her own choosing.
And one or two took higher ground, and declared that the establishment which contained an old bachelor and a very beautiful ward, was not in a position to confront the criticisms of the world.
To such as have not known, or met with the class Sir Within pertained to, it will perhaps seem incredible that the old rake actually felt flattered by this attack on his reputation. All that he had ever known of life was passed amongst people of admirable manners and very lax morals. They were the best bred, the best informed, the best dressed, and the pleasantest in the universe. Nowhere was life so easy and agreeable as in their company; every one was kind, considerate, and obliging; not a hard word was ever dropped. Who could be uncharitable where all was tolerated? Who could be severe where everything was pardoned?
It was by a very easy induction that he was led to believe that a certain laxity on the score of morals was an essential element of good breeding, and that nothing was so low in tone as that “eternal scrutiny,” as he called it, into one’s neighbours’ habits, which would make of a gentleman very little other than a detective.
When he heard, therefore, that a certain Mademoiselle La Grange had taken her departure on these exceptional grounds, he actually chuckled with delighted vanity.