Nodding to them both with a smile which diffused such an extraordinary light over the uncomely face that Agatha was quite startled and began to reconsider her first impression regarding it,—“Duke” Dugdale turned to walk on; but just as the horse was starting, came back again.
“Nathanael, you are here just in time—general election coming. You're a Free-trader of course?”
“Why, I never thought much about the matter.”
“Eh!—What a pity! But we'll convert you, and you shall convert your father. Ah, yes—I think we'll get the Squire on our side at last Good-bye.”
“Who is 'the Missus' and who is 'the Squire'” asked Agatha, as they drove off.
“'The Missus' is his wife—my sister Harriet, and 'the Squire' is my father,” said Nathanael, smiling. His face had worn a pleasant look ever since he caught sight of Duke Dugdale's. “When I first came home I was as much amused as yourself at these queer Dorsetshire phrases, but I like them now; they are so simple and patriarchal.”
Agatha agreed; yet she could hardly help laughing. But though this brother-in-law of Mr. Harper's—and she suddenly remembered that he was her own brother-in-law too—used provincial words, and spoke with a slight accent, which she concluded was “Dorset,”—though his dress and appearance had an anti-Stultzified, innocent, country look, still there was something about Marmaduke Dugdale which bespoke him unmistakably the gentleman.
“I am glad we met him,” said Mr. Harper, looking back down the street. “There he is, talking to a knot of people at the market-hall—farmers, no doubt, whom he will try to make Free-traders of, and who would listen to him affectionately, even if he tried to make them Mahometans. The good soul! There isn't a better man in all Dorsetshire.”
It was evident that Nathanael greatly liked “Duke Dugdale.”
Agatha would have asked a score of questions; about his age, which defied all guessing, and might have been anything from thirty to fifty-five—also about his “Missus,” for he looked like a man who never could have made love, or thought of such a thing, in all his life. But her curiosity was restrained, partly by that of the old servant behind, who kept up a close though reverential observance of all the sayings and doings of “Ma-a-ester” Nathanael's wife. She did not like even accidentally to betray how very little of Kingcombe her reserved husband had told her, and how she knew scarcely more of his family than their names.