"Nothing is settled yet. If there had been, you and Canon Hadlow should have been the first to know it—as it would be only my duty to tell you, after all your kindness to the child. Nothing is settled. But I am in favour of her going myself."
"You take the sensible view, Mrs. Dobbs, as I think you always do—except at election time," added Mrs. Hadlow, smiling.
The elder woman smiled back, with a little resolute setting of the lips, and begged her best respects to the canon as she took her leave. The canon was a great favourite with Mrs. Dobbs; and, on his part, their political struggle in that long past election had inspired him with a British respect for his adversary's pluck and fair play.
The prospect of going with Mrs. Hadlow and Constance greatly reconciled May to the idea of the dinner-party. But she did not look forward to it with anticipations of enjoyment.
"I would much rather dine in the nursery with the children," she said, unconsciously echoing Mrs. Bransby's suggestion.
Mr. Weatherhead, who was present, took her up on this, and said, "Why, now, May, you will enjoy being in good society! Mr. Bransby is a very agreeable man, and used to some of the best company in the county. Mrs. Bransby, too, is very pleasant and very pretty; a Miss Lutyer she was, a regular beauty, and belonging to a good old Shropshire family. And young Theodore——" Jo Weatherhead pausing here, and hesitating for a moment, May broke in, "Come now, Uncle Jo," she exclaimed, "you can't say that he's pretty or pleasant!"
"He's not bad-looking," returned Mr. Weatherhead, rather doubtfully. "Though, to be sure, he isn't so fine a man as his father."
"No; this lad is like his mother's family," said Mrs. Dobbs. "I remember his grandfather and grandmother very well."
"Do you? Do you, Sarah? Who were they? What sort of people, now, eh?"
"Common sort of people; Rabbitt, their name was. Old Rabbitt kept the Castlecombe Arms, a roadside inn over towards Gloucester way. He ran a coach between his own market-town and Gloucester before the branch railway was made, and they say he did a good deal of money-lending; any way, he scraped together a goodish bit, and his wife came in for a slice of luck by a legacy. So altogether their daughter—the first Mrs. Martin Bransby that was—had a nice fortune of her own. She was sent to a good school and well educated, and she was a very good sort of girl; but she had just the same smooth, light hair, and smooth, pale face as this young Theodore. Martin Bransby had money with his first wife—he's got beauty with his second."