The splendour of the house, the richness of the ancient furniture and appurtenances, the delicacies of the table, the attendance, the comfortable profusion of everything, had been duly noted and duly appreciated by Annot, and she felt that it was with sincere regret she would quit the fleshpots of Earlshaugh.
More than once, when promenading about the corridors with the aid of a stick, Roland had surprised her in tears.
'Tears—my darling—why—what!' he began.
'It is nothing,' she replied, with a little flush. 'I am oppressed, I suppose, by the emptiness and size of this great house. I am such an impressionable little thing you know, Roland.'
'We can't amend the size of the house,' said he, smiling, 'but a cosier and a smaller one awaits us elsewhere, when you are my dear little wife, and we quit this place, once so dear to me, as I never thought to quit it in disgust—for ever!'
Seeing the varying moods of Annot, and the occasional petulance, even coldness, with which she sometimes ventured to treat Roland now, Hester, remembering that young lady's confidences with reference to Mr. Bob Hoyle and other 'detrimentals,' her avowed passion for money, and how a moneyed match was a necessity of her life, and knowing Roland's changed position and fortunes—Hester, we say, was not slow in putting 'two and two together,' to use a common adage, to the detriment of Annot in her estimation.
'I would that I were a strong-minded woman,' said the latter reproachfully, as she and Roland lingered one evening in a corridor that was a veritable picture gallery (for there hung the Lindsays of other days, as depicted by the brushes of the Jamesons, the Scougals, De Medinas, Raeburns, and Watsons in the striking costumes of their times), and Roland had been taking her a little to task for some of her petulant remarks.
'A strong-minded woman,' he repeated. 'Nonsense! But why?'
'Then I should cease to annoy you, and join an Anglican Sisterhood, to nurse the poor and all that sort of thing.'
She pouted prettily as she spoke—sweetly, with all her softest dimples coming into play.