"I should not bear him an undying enmity if he had. But you see, 'tis election time, and the earl wishes to put in a gentleman, a friend of ours, for Kingswell. Mr. Halifax owns some cottages there, eh?"
"Mr. Fletcher does. My husband transacts business—"
"Stop! stop!" cried Lady Caroline. "I don't understand business; I only know that they want your husband to be friendly with mine. Is this plain enough?"
"Certainly: be under no apprehension. Mr. Halifax never bears malice against any one. Was this the reason of your visit, Lady Caroline?"
"Eh—mon Dieu! what would become of us if we were all as straightforward as you, Mistress Ursula? But it sounds charming—in the country. No, my dear; I came—nay, I hardly know why. Probably, because I liked to come—my usual reason for most actions. Is that your salle-a-manger? Won't you ask me to dinner, ma cousine?"
"Of course," the mother said, though I fancied, afterwards, the invitation rather weighed upon her mind, probably from the doubt whether or no John would like it. But in little things, as in great, she had always this safe trust in him—that conscientiously to do what she felt to be right was the surest way to be right in her husband's eyes.
So Lady Caroline was our guest for the day—a novel guest—but she made herself at once familiar and pleasant. Guy, a little gentleman from his cradle, installed himself her admiring knight attendant everywhere: Edwin brought her to see his pigeons; Walter, with sweet, shy blushes, offered her "a 'ittle f'ower!" and the three, as the greatest of all favours, insisted on escorting her to pay a visit to the beautiful calf not a week old.
Laughing, she followed the boys; telling them how lately in Sicily she had been presented to a week-old prince, son of Louis Philippe the young Duke of Orleans and the Princess Marie-Amelie. "And truly, children, he was not half so pretty as your little calf. Ursula, I am sick of courts sometimes. I would turn shepherdess myself, if we could find a tolerable Arcadia."
"Is there any Arcadia like home?"
"Home!"—Her face expressed the utmost loathing, fear, and scorn. I remembered hearing that the 'Squire since his return from abroad had grown just like his father; was drunk every day and all day long. "Is your husband altered, Ursula? He must be quite a young man still. Oh, what it is to be young!"