‘I don’t see,’ he observed, after Ada had been a few months at home, ‘that she does much that’s useful, or ever goes into the kitchen, or makes a pudding’ (infallible criterion of feminine value and worth to a certain order of masculine mind), ‘or her own clothes; and yet she often seems to me to have a deal of time on her hands that she doesn’t quite know what to do with; and as for money, she has no notion of the value of it. It’s awful.’
‘And how should she, I should like to know?’ asked Mrs. Dixon, indignantly. ‘A child like her! She’ll learn fast enough. And then I expect her to marry well. I don’t know who ought to if she ought not.’
‘You have to marry very high up indeed to have no need ever to think of money or housekeeping.’
‘I shall teach her what’s necessary, of course. And you wrong her, Dixon, when you say she does no dressmaking. I’m sure she’s most industrious. The time she spends in her room, altering things, and trying them on—both hats and bonnets, and dresses too. If you could see her, you’d say no more.’
‘Perhaps I should be too much astonished,’ said Dixon, with a gleam of his native Yorkshire shrewdness. ‘There’s such a thing as thinking too much of dress, and I’m afraid our Ada——’
‘Drat the man!’ said Mrs. Dixon, very sharply. ‘Will nothing satisfy him? First he grumbles that she doesn’t do her dressmaking, and then he grumbles that she does. It’s just like a man. Either they are up in the clouds, or they are down in the depths, or——’
‘That’s the shop,’ said Mr. Dixon, feigning to hear the bell, and alertly running away.
‘Can’t he see?’ Mrs. Dixon said, within herself, when she was left alone. ‘Ada will marry a gentleman, of course. She’s as pretty as she can be, and a wonderful taste in dress, and a perfect lady in manners, and with Miss Wynter for her friend, and constantly going up to see her. Miss Wynter sees the best of society. Besides, I’ve seen the gentlemen look at her, many a time. Didn’t I hear Mr. Gilbert Langstroth, the very last time he was here, say to her, quite respectfully, “Why, Miss Dixon, I wondered what beauty had taken up her winter quarters in Bradstane”? And Dixon pretending that Mr. Langstroth is always sneering at people, and that he would never have said such a thing to any lady, or anywhere where it could be taken seriously! And him that sees such high society in London! And Mr. Askam—didn’t he say to me, “How’s your lovely daughter, Mrs. Dixon? I hear she’s turning all the young men’s heads”? It’s true Mr. Askam has a free and easy way with him, and they say he means no good by any girl he pays compliments to; but then it was me he spoke to—not Ada. Straws show which way the wind’s blowing, and I say there’s no knowing what may happen.’
Time passed, and neither of the gentlemen whom Mrs. Dixon had thought of became more marked in their attentions. Nay, what with Ada’s magnificence, and the scarcity of matches worthy her consideration, there were even mortifications in store for the maternal ambition. It was a distinct if not an acknowledged mortification when Mary Metcalfe, a quiet-looking girl, with three sisters under her—such a family of them,—a girl with no beauty to boast of, and not a scrap of fashionable education; a girl Ada’s own age to a day, and who had once been her playfellow—got engaged to one of the most well-to-do young farmers in all the country round. Not that Ada would have listened for a moment to any farmer but a gentleman-farmer, and of course young Simpson would never have had the audacity to ask her. (Whether from bashfulness or other reason, it is quite certain that young Simpson never did ask her.) And yet, it was distinctly mortifying to sit in one’s pew, and hear Mr. Johnson read out the banns of James Simpson and Mary Metcalfe. No one grudged Mary a good husband, poor girl; but Ada—it really seemed as if, in the proper order of things, Ada should have come first.
While the coming gentleman of high degree tarried, Roger Camm appeared upon the scene, and very soon made it manifest that he had the audacity, not only to love, but to declare himself. Ada, to Mrs. Dixon’s severe disappointment, was much pleased, charmed, nay, self-complacent. Mrs. Dixon alone was really against the match, saying many disparaging things of the suitor’s appearance, position, and prospects, and of everything connected with him; and persisting, with the tenacity of a weak and vain woman about her favourite object, that if they would only wait, Ada would do much better.