As Jenny took her place, she saw Robin Featherstone making room at the lower table for a stranger—a young man, aged about two or three and twenty, dressed in a tidy suit of grey cloth, and apparently a new servant. His complexion was unusually dark, and his hair jet black. He was not handsome, and as Jenny did not admire dark complexions, she mentally set him down as an uninteresting person—probably Lord Wilmot’s man.
The good-natured steward, on her right hand, noticed Jenny’s look at the new comer.
“That is Mrs Jane’s new man,” said he kindly; “he goeth with you into Somerset. My Lord Wilmot hath spoken for him to the Colonel, and commends him highly, for a young man of exceeding good character.”
Young men of good character were not attractive people to Jenny; a young man with good looks would have had much more chance of her regard.
“His name is William Jackson,” added the steward.
Jenny was rather sorry to hear that this uninteresting youth would have to go with them to Bristol; the rather, because it destroyed the last vestige of a faint hope she had entertained, that Robin Featherstone might be chosen for that purpose.
The worst of all her grievances was, that she seemed completely cut off from his delightful society. She had really seen far more of him at the farm than she did now, when she was living in the same house. And then to have all her rose-coloured visions for the future destroyed—Jenny felt herself a badly used young woman.
Supper ended, the dance followed according to Mrs Jane’s decree, led off by herself and Lord Wilmot; and Jenny, to her great satisfaction, found herself the partner of the enchanting Robin.
“Mrs Jenny, I have not had so much as a word with you since yestereven!” said that gentleman reproachfully.
“No, in very deed,” assented Jenny; “and I hear you go not into Somerset, Mr Featherstone.”