Mr. Cartwright extended his pastoral hand to the young lady with a most gracious smile.
"Bless you both!" said he, joining their hands between both of his. "To lead you together in the path in which we must all wish to go, would be a task that might give a foretaste of the heaven we sought!"
He then turned towards Mrs. Mowbray, and with a look and tone which showed that though he never alluded to her situation, he never forgot it, he inquired how far she had extended her ramble.
"Much farther than I intended when I set out," replied Mrs. Mowbray. "But my children, the weather, and the hay, altogether beguiled me to the bottom of Farmer Bennet's great meadow."
"Quite right, quite right," replied Mr. Cartwright, with something approaching almost to fervour of approbation: "this species of quiet courage, of gentle submission, is just what I expected from Mrs. Mowbray. It is the sweetest incense that you can offer to Heaven; and Heaven will repay it."
Mrs. Mowbray looked up at his mild countenance, and saw a moisture in his eye that spoke more tender pity than he would permit his lips to utter. It touched her to the heart.
Mrs. Richards, who was something of a florist, was examining, with the assistance of Rosalind, some new geraniums that were placed on circular stands outside the drawing-room, filling the spaces between the windows. As this occupation had drawn them from the rest of the party from the time Mr. Cartwright approached to join it, they had not yet received that gentleman's salutation, and he now went up to them.
"Miss Torrington looks as if she were discoursing of her kindred. Are these fair blossoms the children of your especial care?"
"They are the children of the gardener and the greenhouse, I believe," she replied carelessly, and stepped on to another stand.
"Mrs. Richards, I believe?" said the graceful vicar, taking off his hat to her.