“No-o, I hadn’t. I’d been to look at a church.”
“That means that you’ve fallen in love with a parson.”
“Papa, papa, how can you say such things—of me, too?”
“Why, my dear child, I only spoke in fun. You don’t really suppose I thought so meanly of you as that?”
Olivia laughed with some constraint. If her father, who already had a prejudice against the clergy, should hear the rumors about poor Mr. Brander, nothing, short of entreaties which she would be ashamed to use, would induce him to allow her to exchange another word with the vicar of St. Cuthbert’s. And, in a neighborhood where the social attractions were so few as at Rishton, the loss of an acquaintance capable of intelligent conversation was a serious one. She grew silent, and beginning to feel conscious of the cold, shivered. Her father instantly opened the door and led her into the house. He could hear his wife’s powerful voice as she chatted with one of the servants in the dining-room. Mrs. Denison was one of those women who confide much in their servants, without extracting any confidence worth having in return. She dropped into a stony silence as her husband and his daughter entered; for there was a feud, generally covert but none the less real, between the two ladies.
Mrs. Denison was a woman of about thirty-five, of the middle height, somewhat thick set, with a cold face, which was not ill looking, though she had never been strictly handsome. She drew herself up, with a displeased expression, in the arm chair she occupied by the fire; and Olivia knew that her efforts to make the house comfortable had not met with the approval of its mistress. The girl walked the whole length of the long room with a rather rebellious feeling in her heart, which she tried to subdue, and held out her hand with the best grace she could.
“How do you do, mamma? I hope you had a pleasant journey,” she said, cordially.
Mrs. Denison gave her finger tips, and looked at her with cold eyes.
“Quite as well as I could expect, thank you, knowing what I had to look forward to.”
“I hope you don’t dislike the new home already.”