"How are you, mother? What, another new cap?"
Old Mrs. Touchwood patted her head complacently. "We bought it at Threadgale's in Galton. The ribbons are the new hollyhock red."
"Delightful!" John exclaimed. "And who helped you to choose it? Little Frida here?"
"Nobody helped me, Johnnie. Hilda accompanied me into Galton; but she wanted to buy a sardine-opener for the house."
John had not for a moment imagined that his mother had wanted any advice about a cap; but inasmuch as Frida, in what was intended to be a demonstrative welcome, prompted by her mother, was rubbing her head against his ribs like a calf against a fence, he had felt he ought to hook her to the conversation somehow. John's concern about Frida was solved by the others' gathering round him for greetings.
First Hilda offered her sallow cheek, patting while he kissed it her brother on the back with one hand, and with the other manipulating Harold in such a way as to give John the impression that his nephew was being forced into his waistcoat pocket.
"He feels you're his father now," whispered Hilda with a look that was meant to express the tender resignation of widowhood, but which only succeeded in suggesting a covetous maternity. John doubted if Harold felt anything but a desire to escape from being sandwiched between his mother's crape and his uncle's watch chain, and he turned to embrace Edith, whose cheeks, soft and pink as a toy balloon, were floating tremulously expectant upon the glinting autumn air.
"We've been so anxious about you," Edith murmured. "And Laurence has such a lot to talk over with you."
John, with a slight sinking that was not altogether due to its being past his usual luncheon hour, turned to be welcomed by his brother-in-law.
The vicar of Newton Candover's serenity if he had not been a tall and handsome man might have been mistaken for smugness; as it was, his personality enveloped the scene with a ceremonious dignity that was not less than archidiaconal, and except for his comparative youthfulness (he was the same age as John) might well have been considered archiepiscopal.