'Aye,' muttered the Doctor, 'and got advice that he has taken pretty effectually.'
Whereupon Ethel, feeling horribly and ridiculously conscious, jumped up and talked of Cocksmoor decorations. Gertrude had insisted on making them up at Cocksmoor instead of at home. It would be a little further out of reach of 'the enemy,' and in the parsonage the sisters and Richard worked unmolested all the morning, but in the afternoon, while they were putting up their wreaths, there drove up to the lych-gate Mrs. Thomas May in her donkey chair, bringing her choice manufacture of crosses and devices, escorted by her sister Ella Ward and Rupert Cheviot. It was too cold and damp for her to venture into church, but Richard hastened out to beguile her into his parlour, and refresh her with tea, while Mr. Cheviot helped to carry in her contributions, the very crown and glory of the whole, looking about with the critical suggestive patronage of a man who had seen the world, and making recommendations which Ella eagerly seconded, and Ethel did not disapprove, but Gertrude combatted vehemently: 'It had never been so! Richard would not like it!' and out she hurried to appeal to him and call him to the rescue.
Rupert Cheviot moved to the door, perhaps in hopes of mitigating her, but as she reached the lych-gate, a young man in deep black came up on the other side, and their hands met with something in the manner that made Mr. Cheviot turn to Ella Ward and ask, 'Who is that fellow?'
'That? Oh! one of the Underwoods. The one in the business.'
'What business?'
'Oh! he's a printer, a bookseller rather. Those Underwoods pretend to be county people, but they are nothing really but tradesmen.'
'Mr. Cheviot is not so behindhand with the world as to think that a reproach,' said Ethel, as she caught the words, while coming forward, and over her spectacles she gave Ella one of the repressive glances which the young lady felt in her backbone. She was not at all a bad sort of girl, but the ingrain likeness to her brother Henry grew with her growth, and she had just come to the age when to get any sort of notice from any young gentleman was the prime object of her desires. Rupert Cheviot, of course, at Ethel's words went forward, and on being introduced to Mr. Lancelot Underwood, shook hands with him with rather unnecessary empressement.
Gertrude at once appealed to Lance's taste, 'Was it not the thing to have the festoons hanging loose and natural, not in stiff lines?'
'It is our way at St. Oswald's,' said Lance, 'but at Vale Leston Clement holds to following the architectural lines.'
'Ah! Vale Leston. Is not that a remarkable specimen of the later Early Pointed? I must run over some day and see it.'