Presently a footman was seen running towards the pond followed by the gardener's boy at a little distance; then appeared the fat coachman, and, in the farthest distance, Mr. Grey himself.
The footman, quite out of breath, brought his master's compliments, and he begged Miss Capel to come off the ice: then up came the boy, grinning, but saying nothing, then the coachman toiled up, and said that master was in a mortal fright lest the young lady had come to any harm; and informed Mr. Land, aside, "as how that cankered old toad, Casement, had been telling master a pack of lies about a thaw;" and by the time Margaret had disengaged the straps of her skates from her little feet, Mr. Grey had reached her all in a tremble, and taking her in his arms had begun a gentle remonstrance on her imprudence in venturing upon thin ice. Land came forward, and vowed that the ice was as firm as the rock of Gibraltar, and recommended, in proof thereof, that the fat coachman and the gardener's boy should cross the pond arm-in-arm. But Mr. Grey's fears once excited, could not so easily be set at rest; if the ice was not thin, it would probably be slippery—not an uncommon attribute—people had broken their limbs before now by a fall on the ice; indeed, he was not sure that there was not a case of the kind at present in the village, which he hoped would be a warning to Margaret never to skate again. And seeing that she was half crying as she resigned her skates to Land, he promised her a plum-cake for tea as the only means that came into his head of softening the bitterness of her disappointment.
CHAPTER III.
The red rose medled with the white yfere,
In either cheek depeinten lively chear;
Her modest eye,
Her majesty,
Where have you seen the like but there?
SPENSER.
Mr. Grey did not go to church on the Sunday after Margaret's arrival. He very seldom ventured during the winter to encounter the cold and damp common to most village churches at that season; from which some persons augured that he had a bad heart, while others contented themselves by supposing that he had a delicate chest.
Having seen his little niece warmly packed up in the carriage, he returned to his library to read the service to himself, and she proceeded, with some little elevation of feeling, on her way. It was new to her to have a carriage all to herself, to recline alone in the corner with her feet in a carriage-mat; and to have Land to hand her out, and carry her prayer-books to the pew-door. Having deposited Margaret and her books, and having whispered to her that the Gage's seat was next to hers, Land withdrew to his own part of the church.
Presently, a tall, elderly man of imposing appearance, with an empty sleeve, and hair touched with grey, opened the door of the Gages' seat, and stepped back that the young lady by his side might pass in. These, Margaret was sure, were Captain Gage and his daughter. Captain Gage cast one quick glance from his clear blue eyes at Margaret, and then took his seat. Miss Gage lingered a second longer, without any apparent rudeness of manner, from a genuine reluctance to remove her eyes from so lovely a face. Although Miss Gage was all fur and black velvet, yet her regal figure and magnificent stature could not be mistaken.
She was strikingly like her father, with straight features, light brown hair, and calm, clear, full-opened blue eyes; but although it was impossible to deny to her face the regularity of an antique statue, and the sweetness of expression that almost always accompanies regularity, she possessed one drawback in the eyes of Margaret; she must have been two or three and twenty, at least, an age that to a girl of seventeen seems to approach very near to the confines of the grave.
Margaret possessed too correct a sense of her religious duties to spend her time in watching her neighbours, but as they sat just in front of her, she could not raise her eyes without seeing them; and before church was over, she had become perfectly acquainted with Miss Gage's appearance, from the large ruby that flashed on her white hand, to the purple prayer-book inlaid with silver in which she looked out all the places for her father.
Mr. Grey was very much amused by her account of what she had seen when she came home. He was very careful that she should have plenty of sandwiches, and hot wine and water for luncheon to counteract the cold of the church, and sat listening and smiling to hear her describe Miss Gage's velvet pelisse and little ermine muff. He saw plainly, he told her, that she would like a black velvet gown herself. Margaret coloured and laughed, but could not deny the fact, and the next morning after breakfast, he told Land to go over to the next town and get one.