"You did n't ought to have given him so much, father dear!"
This just but ungrammatical observation emanated from the female head of the party; and despite an innate disinclination to risk catching the eye of strangers in public, I turned and inspected the speaker. From her style of address it was plain that she was either wife or daughter to Mr. Welwyn. Daughter she probably was not, for she must have been quite thirty; and therefore by a process of exhaustion I was led to the reluctant conclusion that she was his wife. I say reluctant, for it seemed incredible that a suave polished academic gentleman could be mated with a lady:--
(1) Who would initiate a domestic discussion in the presence of strangers.
(2) Whose syntax was shaky.
(3) Who wore a crimson blouse, with vermilion feathers in her hat.
But it was so. Mr. Welwyn waved a hand deprecatingly.
"One has one's position to consider, dear," he said. "Besides, these poor fellows are not overpaid, I fear, by their employers."
At this, a grim contraction flitted for a moment over Mrs. Welwyn's florid good-tempered features, and I saw suitable retorts crowding to her lips. But that admirable and exceptional woman--as in later days she proved herself over and over again to be--said nothing. Instead, she smiled indulgently upon her extravagant husband, as upon a child of the largest possible growth, and accepted from him with nothing more than a comical little sigh two magazines which had cost sixpence each.
I now had time to inspect the other two members of the party. They were children. One was a little boy--a vulgar, overdressed, plebian, open-mouthed little boy--and I was not in the least surprised a moment later to hear his mother address him as "Percy." (It had to be either "Percy" or "Douglas.") He was dressed in a tight and rather dusty suit of velveteen, with a crumpled lace collar and a plush jockey-cap. He looked about seven years old, wore curls down to his shoulders, and extracted intermittent nourishment from a long and glutinous stick of licorice.
The other was a girl--one of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen. I was not--and am not--an expert on children's ages, but I put her down as four years old. She was a plump and well-proportioned child, with an abundance of brown hair, solemn grey eyes, and a friendly smile. She sat curled up on the seat, leaning her head against her mother's arm, an oasis of contentment and neatness in that dusty railway carriage; and I felt dimly conscious that in due time I should like to possess a little girl of my own like that.