"And a very pretty drink too," chimed in Jacob's mother. "I'm old enough to remember it, and I've often had a mind to store marjoram; but I dare say now it would seem very weak after proper China tea."
"My mother loves tea; and I'm all for cider," said Bullstone, "but Margery won't touch even that."
"And never will," promised Mrs. Huxam. "Cider's too often the thin end of the wedge. I've known it happen so. No young man stops at cider."
Judith was quite silent for a considerable time after this remark, and their talk ranged over various subjects.
Jacob felt not sanguine for his new neighbour.
"Adam Winter's making a mistake," he said, "and hardly a man that can afford to make another by all accounts. A very honest chap they tell me, but too trustful. No good ever come out of Shipley Farm—else I dare say I'd have bought it before now; but my father always warned me against it. I shall lend Winter a hand if it lies in my power, however."
After dinner Mrs. Bullstone led the way to her little drawing-room and she and Margery's mother spent half an hour together. It was an apartment seldom used and impregnated with that faint smell common to chambers not much occupied. The furniture was ugly and solid—a suite upholstered in Cambridge blue. Adornments of coloured glass occupied the mantelshelf, a case of gaudy stuffed birds stood on a bracket, and another of waxen fruits filled the midst of a round and highly polished walnut table in the centre of the room. A few books were disposed round the central decoration, and upon a little "what-not" reposed tropical shells. Elsewhere, as the chief feature of a sideboard with a looking-glass back, a large and heavy book with gilt edges reposed upon a red wool mat, while a smaller book lay upon the big one.
Mrs. Huxam observed these two books and her eyes narrowed; but she said nothing.
They chatted concerning their betrothed children, and each implicitly indicated that the other mother might consider herself fortunate. Then, apparently conscious that this attitude was exhausted, Jacob's parent began to praise Margery and declared her to be a good and attractive girl, well suited by her nature to her future husband and by her nurture to the varied duties and obligations of married life.
Judith listened, but it was characteristic of her that when others echoed her opinion, she generally began to modify it, and now, even in the matter of her daughter, she put a period to the elder's praises.