"You are very obliging; but I had no intention of intruding on you thus."
"Pray do not call it an intrusion. We shall be always most happy to see you. I only wish your son and daughter were with us also."
"My daughter, thank you, is a sad invalid; and Jacob generally wanders farther afield in such weather as this.... Is that gentleman Major Dalrymple? May I ask you to introduce me?"
"I shall have much pleasure in doing so, I am sure. He is a very amiable and estimable person."
Mrs. Mowbray crossed the room towards him, followed by the vicar. The introduction took place, and the two gentlemen conversed together for a few minutes on the ordinary topics of Russia, the harvest, the slave-trade, and reform. On every subject, except the harvest, which Mr. Cartwright despatched by declaring that it would be peculiarly abundant, the reverend gentleman expressed himself with an unusual flow of words, in sentences particularly well constructed; yet nevertheless his opinions seemed enveloped in a mist; and when Mrs. Richards afterwards asked the major his opinion of the new vicar, he replied that he thought his manners very gentlemanlike and agreeable, but that he did not perfectly remember what opinions he had expressed on any subject.
At first the company seemed inclined to disperse themselves in knots about the room; but by degrees Mr. Cartwright very skilfully contrived, on one pretence or another, to collect them all round a table that was covered with the usual incitements to talk, and the conversation became general. At least Mr. Cartwright was very generally listened to; the major did not speak at all; and the ladies did little more than agree with and applaud from time to time the placid, even, dulcet flow of words which fell like a gentle rivulet from the lips of their new vicar. This description, indeed, would not apply quite generally to all the ladies; but the majority in his favour was five to three, and with this advantage,—that whereas his admirers were loud and eloquent in their expressions of approval, the minority contented themselves by preserving silence.
CHAPTER IX.
HELEN AND ROSALIND CALL UPON SIR GILBERT HARRINGTON
Helen Mowbray knew that the choleric friend whose gentler feelings she wished to propitiate was an early riser himself, and was never better disposed to be well pleased with others than when they showed themselves capable of following his example. She was therefore anxious to arrive at his house in time to have the conversation she sought, yet dreaded, before nine o'clock, the usual family breakfast-hour; though in the shooting-season Sir Gilbert generally contrived to coax my lady and her housekeeper to have hot rolls smoking on the table by eight. But, luckily for the young ladies' morning repose, it was not shooting-season; and they calculated that if they started about half past seven they should have time for their walk, and a reasonably long conversation afterwards, before the breakfast, to which they looked as the pacific conclusion of the negotiation, should be ready.