'If you would come with us,' she said wistfully, to the horror of Nuttie, who was burning to be at the beginning of all the matches.
'I? oh no! I promised old Will to look in, but that won't be till late in the day, or I shall have to go handing all the dowagers into the dining-room to tea.'
'Then I think we had better go on. They asked us to come early, so as to see people arrive and know who they are.'
They was a useful pronoun to Alice, who felt it a liberty to call her grand-looking sister-in-law, Jane—was too well-bred to term her Mrs. William.
The mother and daughter crossed the gardens, Nuttie chattering all the way about the tennis tactics she had picked up from Blanche, while her mother answered her somewhat mechanically, wondering, as her eye fell on the square squat gray church tower, what had become of the earnest devotion to church work and intellectual pursuits that used to characterise the girl. True, always both mother and daughter had hitherto kept up their church-going, and even their Sunday-school habits, nor had any hindrance come in their way, Mr. Egremont apparently acquiescing in what he never shared. But these things seemed, in Ursula's mind, to have sunk out of the proportion they held at Bridgefield, no longer to be the spirit of a life, but mere Sunday duties and occupations.
Was this wicked world getting a hold of the poor child? Which was duty? which was the world? This was the thought that perplexed Alice, too simple as yet to perceive that Ursula's former absorption had been in the interests that surrounded her and her companions, exactly as they were at present, and that the real being had yet to work itself out.
For herself, Alice did not think at all. She was rejoicing in her restored husband, and his evident affection. Her duty towards him was in her eyes plain. She saw, of course, that he had no religion, but she accepted the fact like that of bad weather; she loved him, and she loved her daughter; she said her prayers with all her heart for them, she hoped, and she did her best, without trying to go below the surface.
There was the Rectory gate wide open. There was Basil rushing up to greet his dear Aunt Alice, there were all the windows and doors of the Rectory open, and the nearer slopes covered with chairs and seats of all dimensions, some under trees, some umbelliferous, and glowing Afghan rugs, or spotted skins spread for those who preferred the ground. There was Blanche flitting about wild with excitement, and pouncing on Nuttie to admire her outfit, and reiterate instructions; there were the two younger girls altering the position of chairs according to their mother's directions; there were actually two guests—not very alarming ones, only the curate and his wife, both rather gaunt, bony people. He was button-holing the Canon, and she was trying to do the same by the Canoness about some parish casualty. The Canon hoped to escape in the welcome to his sister-in-law and niece, but he was immediately secured again, while his wife found it requisite to hurry off else where, leaving Mrs. Edwards to tell her story to Mrs. Egremont. In point of fact, Alice really liked the good lady, was quite at ease with her, and felt parish concerns a natural element, so that she gave full heed and attention to the cruelty of Mrs. Parkins' depriving Betsy Butter (with an old father and mother to support) of her family washing, on the ground of a missing pocket handkerchief, the which Mrs. Edwards believed to have been abstracted by the favourite pickle of Miss Blanche's class, if only a confession could be elicited from him when undefended by his furious mother. Mrs. Egremont was listening with actual interest and sympathy to the history of Betsy Butter's struggles, and was inquiring the way to her cottage, when she was called off to be introduced to the arrivals who were beginning to flood the lawn. She presently saw May, who had just come down, walking up and down with Mrs. Edwards, evidently hearing the story of the handkerchief. She thought it had been Nuttie for a moment. There was a general resemblance between the cousins that made them be mistaken for one another several times in the course of the day, since their dresses, though not alike, were of the same make and style.
Thus it was that as Nuttie was sitting on the grass in earnest contemplation of Blanche's play, a hand was familiarly laid on her shoulder, and a voice said, 'I haven't seen that horrid girl yet!'
After so many introductions, Nuttie had little idea whom she knew, or whom she did not know. She looked up and saw a small person in light blue, with the delicate features, transparent skin, and blue eyes that accompany yellow hair, with an indescribable glitter of mirth and joyousness about the whole creature, as if she were part and parcel of the sunbeam in which she stood.