"You must be more hopeful and put a brighter face on it, Mary, if only for the sake of the young people," declared the visitor. "You're not approaching the marriage from the right point of view. We must forget the past and keep our minds on the future and proceed with this affair just as though it were an ordinary marriage without any disquieting features. We have to remember that they love each other and really are well suited. The future is chequered by certain differences between my nephews, which have not yet been smoothed out; but I am sure that they will be; and meantime you need feel no fear of any inconvenience for Sabina. I am responsible."
"I know all that," said Mrs. Dinnett, "and your name is in my prayers when I rise up and when I go to bed. But while there's a lot other people can do for 'em, there's also a deal they can only do for themselves; and, in my opinion, they are not doing it. It's no good us playacting and forgetting the past and pretending everything is just as it should be, if they won't."
"But they have."
"Sabina has. I doubt if he has. I don't know how you find him, but when I see him he's not in a nice temper and not taking the situation in the spirit of a happy bridegroom—very far from it. And my second-sight, which I get from my grandmother, points to one thing: that there won't be no wedding."
"This is preposterous," declared Miss Ironsyde. "The day is fixed and every preparation far advanced."
"That's nought to a wayward mind like his. He's got in a state now when I wouldn't trust him a yard. And I hope to God you'll hold the reins tight, miss, and not slacken till they're man and wife. Once let him see his way clear to bolt, and bolt he will."
Mr. Churchouse protested, while Jenny only sighed. Sabina's mother was echoing her own secret uneasiness, but she lamented that others had marked it as well as herself.
"He is in a very moody state, but never speaks of any change of mind to me."
"Because he well knows you hold the purse," said Mrs. Dinnett. "I don't want to say anything uncharitable against the man, though I might; but I will say that there's danger and that I do well to be a miserable woman till the danger's past. You tell me to cheer up, and I promise to cheer up quick enough when there's reason to do so. Mr. Churchouse here is the best gentleman on God's earth; but he don't understand a mother's heart—how should he? and he don't know what a lot women have got to hide from men—for their own self-respect, and because men as a body are such clumsy-minded fools—speaking generally, of course."
To see even Mrs. Dinnett dealing thus in ideas excited Ernest and filled him with interest. He forgot everything but the principle she asserted and would have discussed it for an hour; but Mary, having thus hit back effectively, departed, and Miss Ironsyde brought the master of 'The Magnolias' back to their subject.