A few days would now bring Christmas upon them; the Taverners, accompanied by Mrs. Scattergood and Miss Fairford, were to travel into Hampshire, to Worth, upon the twenty-third of December, and every moment before their departure seemed to Miss Taverner to be occupied in writing graceful notes of acknowledgment for the shower of gifts that descended upon her. The most elegant trifles were sent for her acceptance: she was in despair, half-inclined to return them all, but dissuaded from it by her chaperon, who inspected each offering with the strictest regard for propriety, and pronounced all to be in the best of taste, quite unexceptionable, impossible to decline!
Amongst the collection of snuff-boxes, etuis, china figures, and fans that arrived for his sister, the tokens Peregrine had received made, he complained, a meagre show. Some handkerchiefs, hemmed for him by Lady Fairford, a brace of partridges from Sussex, where Mr. Fitzjohn had retired for the month, a locket with his Harriet’s eye painted on ivory, a small jar of snuff from which the sender’s card was missing, and a fob from his cousin made up the sum of his presents. However, he was in raptures over the locket, and very well satisfied with the rest. The handkerchiefs must always be useful; the birds could be roasted for dinner; the fob was added to his already large collection; and the snuff was no doubt a capital mixture. Like a great many other young gentlemen, Peregrine never stirred out without his box, and inhaled a vast quantity of snuff without having very much taste for it, or discrimination in the sorts he chose. Brown rappee was the same to him as Spanish bran; he could detect very little difference. As for this elegant, glazed jar which had been sent him he liked it excessively, and only wished he might know the donor. A prolonged search amongst the litter of cards, notes, and silver-paper wrappings which surrounded his sister failed to discover the missing card; he had to resign himself to its being lost.
Judith took a pinch of his snuff, and wrinkled her nose at it. “My dear Perry, it reeks of Otto of Roses! It is detestable!”
“Pho, nonsense, you are a great deal too nice! Since you took to using snuff you think you know everything about it.”
“I know this mixture would never be tolerated by Lord Petersham, or Worth,” she retorted. “It is not at all unlike the sort Worth has made up for the Regent, only more scented. Do not be offering it to him, I beg of you! Who can have sent it to you? How awkward it is that you have lost the card!”
“I believe there never was a card. I believe it must have been forgotten. If you do not like the mixture I am glad, for you won’t be wanting to fill your box from my jar.”
“No, indeed! I imagine no one would suspect me of taking scented snuff,” retorted Judith.
The day of setting forward on the journey arrived at last. The trunks and the bandboxes were safely strapped to the chaise: Mrs. Scattergood predicted a fall of snow; Peregrine mounted his horse; Miss Fairford was picked up in Arlington Street; and the whole party started on the journey not more than an hour later than had originally been intended.
No fall of snow occurred to render the roads impassable; the weather, though wintry, was not cold enough to make travelling insupportable; and with only one halt of any length upon the way they arrived at Worth by four in the afternoon, to be welcomed with all the comfort of large fires, hot soup, and cheerful company.
It was dusk when they turned in at the iron gates of Worth, and no impression of the park, or the exterior of the house could be had; but the interior struck Miss Taverner at once with a sense of its elegance, noble apartments, and handsome furnishings. It was just what a gentleman’s residence should be; everything spoke its owner’s taste. Judith could not but be pleased with all that she saw, and wish to explore further, at a more convenient time, into the older part of the house, which she understood to date back as much as two centuries.