The boy opened the roundest eyes. If any opinion was strongly established, it was the ill savour of ranters in the nostrils of the gentry.
'Squire'd be against it, ma'am,' said an older man, 'and Mr. Eddard! Us knows our dooty better than to hearken to such like trash.'
'For shame, Brand,' returned the young lady. 'How dare you speak so of a man who comes in that Name. Now! Here I mean you to stand and listen. Who can tell what good he may do us?'
'Miss Angela' was the universal favorite with the village youth, having fascinated them from the first; and if they had of late remarked any change in her, it was set down to 'taking on' about her brothers, and her defence was undisputed quite as much from attachment as from sheer amazement. The preacher had, on the apparition of the tall lady in black with the lightly waving crape streamers and mantle, expected a rescue from insult and violence, but a warning to depart; and his amazement was great when she took a position in advance of the rabble rout, and signed to him to go on.
He was a man above the average of his class, and his discourse was considerably affecting Angela, when down the lane from Blackstone Gulley came Robina, Stella, Bernard, and Will Harewood, showing Mr. and Mrs. Lamb the beauties of the country.
'Holloa, what's the row? A fellow jawing away somewhere!' quoth Bernard.
'I thought you had no dissenters here, Robina,' said Mrs. Lamb.
'No more we have,' stoutly affirmed Robina, in spite of the strange voices on the blast.
'What's that?'
'An obliging mission from our neighbour.'