“She is quite beautiful, and I fell in love with the mother, a gentle, worn creature, whose face showed me her heart was of a different construction to her daughter’s; but she had no control. She is a nominal guardian, as I am with Mark. Miss Pennington put forward her independence very clearly.”
“What class of people are they?”
“Of our own class. I heard something of the father from old Bulwer this morning. He is a merchant hovering on the verge of ruin. The house looked poor,” Valentine said. “It made me sorry somehow, and I was more sorry still when I got outside and realized what a miserable thing human nature is. I had difficulty in being admitted at first, and a young girl, a regular little spitfire, entertained me till her mother came. I suppose you will see something of these people in the future, Grace, since we are to be near neighbors of Sunstead. Naturally, if the daughter is to be Lady Wentworth, the family will be on the scene.”
“I don’t think I care to know them,” Grace Ambleton said, frankly.
And after this the subject dropped, and Valentine opened the newspaper, and settled himself in his corner to read.
His thoughts wandered a good deal, however, and the vision of a certain worn woman’s face haunted him.
He had conceived an immediate liking for Mrs. Pennington.
“Poor woman! she has heavy troubles to come, if what I hear is true, and she cannot hope for much love and consolation from her eldest daughter. It is to be hoped the little brown maiden will be more satisfactory. She can hit out straight, anyhow,” he mused to himself, with a faint smile, “and I rather like her for that. She is pretty, too,” he added, as an afterthought, and this thought arose as a very clear remembrance of Polly’s strange, lovely eyes came to his mind.
They remained a memory for a few seconds, and then they faded away, but Polly and her wonderful eyes were destined to be brought back to Valentine Ambleton’s memory before very long.