In truth it had put both husband and wife into a position of some difficulty. For while, on the one hand, they were delighted at this opportunity of getting “the one too many” off their hands for a time, yet there were the opinions of their neighbors to be considered; and the tide of public feeling had set in strongly against the lady in black.
If her hair had been dark instead of fair, it would have made all the difference. The beauty which goes with brown hair and a more or less dark complexion is not so startling, not so sensational, as the loveliness of pink and white and gold which made Mrs. Dale so conspicuous. If again, she had not been in mourning, and such pretty mourning, they would have been readier to make allowance for her eccentricities. But the knowing ones had begun to discover that there were discrepancies in her attire, that her mourning was either too deep for diamond rings to be permissible, or not deep enough for the heavy black veil she wore.
So that, in short, it was now almost universally admitted that this person with the too showy carriage and horses, and the dangerously pretty face, was an individual to be avoided, and it was decided that her reluctance to enter the best society of the place, when that society had held out its uninviting arms to her, arose from a wholesome fear that the wise women of the place would “find her out.”
Mr. Rose read Mrs. Dale’s note twice through, very slowly, as if trying to discover hidden meanings in its simple words. Then he looked at his wife, who was watching him rather anxiously.
“Well, my dear, and what do you think?” asked he.
It pleased him to ask her opinion thus on most things, not that he ever had any intention of heeding her wishes in preference to his own, but in the hope that she would express some modest inclination one way or the other, to give him an impetus in the opposite direction.
“I think, dear, that it would hardly do,” murmured the lady, hoping that for once her husband would fall in with her views. “You must have heard the way in which people talk about this Mrs. Dale, so that it would be thought very strange if we let Mabin stay with her. Don’t you think it was rather underhand of her to get hold of the child this afternoon?”
“Underhand! Certainly not,” replied Mr. Rose with decision. “The most natural thing in the world, considering how kind she was to the girl at the time of her accident. And as for the talk of the place, why, if you listened to all the old women say you would never go outside your door for fear your neighbors should think you were going to steal their hens!”
There was a pause. She would not irritate him by another remark. So he presently went on:
“I suppose you think the Vicar’s wife would scold you?”