“Thank ’ye—my dear Aggie—Thank ’ye.”
Very different Aunt Betty. She came forward like a cheerful and happy sparrow, her head just on one side as though she wished to perceive the complete effect of everything that was going on.
“My present is handkerchiefs, Father. I worked the initials myself. I hope you will like them,” and then she bent forward and took his hand in hers and held it for a moment. As he looked across at her, a little wave of colour crept up behind the white mask of his cheek. “Dear Betty—my dear. Thank ’ye—Thank ’ye.”
Then followed Mrs. Trenchard, moving like some fragment of the old house that contained her, a fragment anxious to testify its allegiance to the head of the family—but anxious—as one must always remember with Mrs. Trenchard—with no very agitated anxiety. Her slow smile, her solid square figure that should have been fat but was only broad, her calm soft eyes—cow’s eyes—from these characteristics many years of child-bearing and the company of a dreamy husband had not torn her.
Would something ever tear her?... Yes, there was something.
In her slow soft voice she said: “Father dear, many happy returns of the day—many happy returns. This is a silk muffler. I hope you’ll like it, Father dear. It’s a muffler.”
They surveyed one another calmly across the shining table. Mrs. Trenchard was a Faunder, but the Faunders were kin by breeding and tradition to the Trenchards—the same green pastures, the same rich, packed counties, the same mild skies and flowering Springs had seen the development of their convictions about the world and their place in it.
The Faunders.... The Trenchards ... it is as though you said Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Mrs. Trenchard looked at her father-in-law and smiled, then moved away.
Then came the men. Uncle Tim had a case of silver brushes to present and he mumbled something in his beard about them. George Trenchard had some old glass, he flung back his head and laughed, gripped his father by the hand, shouted something down Aunt Sarah’s trumpet. Aunt Sarah herself had given, at an earlier hour, her offering because she was so deaf and her brother’s voice so feeble that on earlier occasions, her presentation, protracted and embarrassing, had affected the whole evening. She sat there now, like an ancient Boadicea, looking down grimly upon the presents, as though they were so many spoils won by a raid.
It was time for the old man to make a Speech: It was—“Thank ’ye, Thank ’ye—very good of you all—very. It’s pleasant, all of us together—very pleasant. I never felt better in my life and I hope you’re all the same.... Thank ’ye, my dears. Thank ’ye.”