'You had better say no more about it,' he answered, 'or you will be sorry.'
'I shall say no more, but it is impossible that you should not think this a great pity and mistake.'
'No, I don't.'
'I know I was wrong in flying out in my old way,' said Cherry, humbly. 'Perhaps there was more female spite in it than I know, and I am thankful to you for catching me up. Of course this is Felix's house; he invites whom he pleases, and I shall make them welcome; but still I think this is a very unnecessary attention, and if you had seen as much of her as we have, I think you would have enforced my opinion.'
He smiled a little sadly, and let it pass, and Cherry inferred that even a cassock could not guard the male sex from weak toleration of a pretty woman. Yet her loyalty was so strong that, when Wilmet's surprise and aversion were expressed with equal plainness, she maintained her brother's right to practise romantic generosity in his own house, especially since his prudence had abstained as long as any speculations could be thereby encouraged.
The visit was to last from Saturday to Monday, and in due time Mrs. Lamb made her appearance, pretty, youthful, and charmingly dressed, with her husband looking so proud of her as almost to overpower his bashfulness.
They were a great contrast, he so honestly simple and affectionate, adoring every word she uttered, however alien to his nature, and she with the claws full grown that poor Edgar had detected in the kitten. Indeed she was not unlike a handsome sleek cat or managing wife, an excellent and tender mother, dainty and demure, but not by any means indisposed to give a sharp scratch with her velvet paw.
When she exclaimed with playful surprise, 'Oh! what a queer old place. So different from what I expected!' or, 'Looking into the churchyard! It would give me the horrors in a week! Such a melancholy noise from the river!' Cherry might conclude that the grapes were sour, but the admirable Lamb was solaced by his wife's sweet preference for her humble home. Such scratches as would have been patent to that good man were reserved for his absence, as when she bewailed the low tastes of such a promising young man as Lance—Cherry made some effort to discover what she could possibly mean, and found that the low tastes signified his preference for Mrs. Froggatt's company, and his assiduity at the Shakespeare Club and Penny Readings.
Of course she commiserated Wilmet for her children's red hair—predicted that Gerald would be a cripple for life, and lamented Angela's being 'sadly gone off.' Angela did in fact avoid the lady as much as possible, and on the Sunday afternoon went off to what she had in her unconverted days been wont to term the Hepburn Methody Meeting, i.e., a Bible class with exposition and prayer held by the good ladies in their own dining-room, an institution dating from the darkest ages of the parish.
Their green-shuttered house looked out upon a space shaped like a triangle, grassy, and formed by the divergence of the Blackstone lane, the nearest approach to a village-green possessed by Vale Leston. Angela was lingering after the dismissal of the class, discussing Will Harewood's sermon, which by-the-by, the clever Miss Isabella much preferred to the Vicar's, probably because Will, a far larger-minded and more intellectual man, was a great deal the most metaphysical, and had more points of contact with her, when the sound of a bawling voice, interspersed with the singing of a hymn, became audible through the open window, and a procession consisting of a pale-faced young man, one old one, three able-bodied women, and four little girls came from the Ewmouth road, and having arrived at the triangle, the young man mounted a log of timber and began to preach. Sounds ensued which made the invalid Miss Hepburn exclaim: 'Oh! there are those people again! There will be an uproar! Oh! my dear, shut the window, and come into the other room!'