“I don’t think he has anything else to do,” returned Meta, “for our house cannot be as pleasant as it was; but he is very kind to George, and for that we must be grateful. One thing I am afraid of, that he will persuade us off to the yachting after all.”
“Oh!” was the general exclamation.
“Yes,” said Meta. “George seemed to like the plan, and I very much fear that he is taking a dislike to the dear old Grange. I heard him say, ‘Anything to get away.’”
“Poor George, I know he is restless,” said Margaret.
“At least,” said Ethel, “you can’t go till after your birthday, Miss Heiress.”
“No, Uncle Cosham is coming,” said Meta. “Margaret, you must have your stone laid before we go!”
“Dr. Spencer promises it before Hector’s holidays are over,” said Margaret, blushing, as she always did, with pleasure, when they talked of the church.
Hector Ernescliffe had revived Margaret wonderfully. She was seldom downstairs before the evening, and Ethel thought his habit of making her apartment his sitting-room must be as inconvenient to her as it was to herself; but Hector could not be de trop for Margaret. She exerted herself to fulfil for him all the little sisterly offices that, with her brothers, had been transferred to Ethel and Mary; she threw herself into all his schemes, tried to make him endure Captain Gordon, and she even read his favourite book of Wild Sports, though her feelings were constantly lacerated by the miseries of the slaughtered animals. Her couch was to him as a home, and he had awakened her bright soft liveliness which had been only dimmed for a time.
The church was her other great interest, and Dr. Spencer humoured her by showing her all his drawings, consulting her on every ornament, and making many a perspective elevation, merely that she might see the effect.
Richard and Tom made it their recreation to construct a model of the church as a present for her, and Tom developed a genius for carving, which proved a beneficial interest to keep him from surliness. He had voluntarily propounded his intended profession to his father, who had been so much pleased by his choice, that he could not but be gratified; though now and then ambitious fancies, and discontent with Stoneborough, combined to bring on his ordinary moody fits, the more, because his habitual reserve prevented any one from knowing what was working in his mind.