‘Oh! how can you—’
‘It is my father’s great principle of education,’ said Arthur, solemnly, ‘to let them grope in the dirt. I never rested till I had seen my boy up to the ears in mud.—But ha! what a magnificent horse! Why,’ as he started forward to look at it, ‘I declare it is stopping here!’
‘Olivia and Mr. Hunt in the gig!’ cried Octavia. Oh, she has the baby in her lap!’
Matilda and Mrs. Albert Moss looked at each other, shocked.
‘What will Mr. Hunt make her do next?’
‘Poor Olivia!’ said Mrs. Albert. ‘We regret the connection; but Mr. Hunt will have his own way. You must excuse—’
It was lost. Seeing the new-comers in difficulties between baby, horse, and gate, Arthur had sped out to open the last for them; and Violet had sprung after him, and received the child in her arms while her sister alighted. Here was the mesalliance of the family, too wealthy to have been rejected, but openly disdained by Matilda, while the gentle Mrs. Moss and Annette hardly ventured to say a good word for him. Violet’s apprehensions had chiefly centred on him, lest his want of refinement should make him very disagreeable to Arthur; and she almost feared to look up as she held out her hand to him.
In a moment her mind was relieved; voice, look, and manner, all showed that the knightly soul was in him, and that he had every quality of the gentleman, especially the hatred of pretension, which made him retain the title of English yeoman as an honourable distinction.
It was a pretty group of contrasts; the soldierly, high-bred, easy grace of the pallid black-haired Colonel, with the native nobleness of bearing of the stalwart farmer, equally tall, and his handsome ruddy face glowing with health; and the two sisters, the one fresh, plump, and rosy, the picture of a happy young mother, and the other slender and dignified, with the slightly worn countenance, which, even in her most gladsome moods, retained that pensive calmness of expression.
The baby occupied the ladies, the horse their husbands; and on hearing what guests were in the drawing-room, Mr. Hunt, with a tell-tale ‘then,’ said he would drive on to his business at Coalworth, inviting the Colonel to take the vacant seat.