“He looks pale, poor young man,” he was smiling as he approached, “and haggard too,” she pronounced, notwithstanding. “He’s anxious, I dare say,” and she pushed up the window as he approached. “What a sweet morning,” she said, taking off her gold spectacles, and smiling with that soft look of sympathy which in such cases makes even old women’s faces so pretty again.
“Charming morning—really quite charming.”
She saw him peeping into the shadow of the room for a second figure. Aunt Dinah’s hand was now within reach, and they exchanged a friendly greeting.
“My little Violet has returned,” she said, still holding Trevor’s hand kindly, “quite well—looking so well—and most unluckily I quite forgot; but I had made an appointment for her this morning with Mrs. Wagget, and I have always made the keeping of appointments so much a moral duty with her, that unless I had opened the subject on which you talked with me, and told her plainly that I expected your call, and that she must wait—which would have been not a favourable way of proceeding; and in fact I should have been obliged to say very badly what you would say, probably, very well; and indeed it is a thing that makes me nervous—always did. When my dear sister was proposed for, I refused to take the message, in fact—I could not—and—he spoke for himself—poor Charles Maubray—like a man—and—and a very happy”⸺Suddenly she stopped, and Trevor saw that tears were trickling slowly down her cheeks; and her lips were resolutely closed; and she fumbled for a minute or two among her silks and worsteds; and the young man felt that he liked her better than ever he did before; and he sat on the window-stone outside, and they chatted kindly for a long time. Then they took a little walk together among the flowers, and under the chestnuts, till it grew to be near two o’clock, and Aunt Dinah began to look for Violet’s return; and if the great Duke of Wellington on the field of Waterloo consulted his watch half so often as Mr. Vane Trevor did his on the green sward of Gilroyd that afternoon, I’m not surprised at it having excited all the observation it did, and being noted in the history of that great day of thunder and suspense.
Not the Iron Duke, however, but his Imperial rival on the field, when lowering his glass, he muttered, “C’est les Prussien,” is the fitter representative of our friend Vane Trevor, when, not Miss Violet Darkwell, but old Mrs. Wagget’s page, a thick and stunted “buttons,” in rifle green regimentals, moved down upon his flank, with a note in his hand for Miss Perfect, who was entreated by the writer to allow Miss Violet to stay dinner, with a promise that she should arrive safe at Gilroyd in the brougham that evening at nine!
There was nothing for it but submission. It would not do, in presence of that dwarfish page, who was eyeing Vane with the curiosity of a youthful gossip, to order the young lady home, detain the young gentleman where he stood, and thus by a feat of discipline compel a meeting.
So Miss Perfect despatched her reply, thanking—I hope it was sincerely—Felicia Honoria Wagget, and accepting the arrangement with the best grace she might.
“You must come in and take some luncheon,” said Aunt Dinah.
Gilroyd was somehow so charming a spot, its resources had grown so inexhaustible, and old Miss Perfect so sensible and altogether interesting that Trevor was glad to linger a little, and postpone the evil hour of departure. It came at last, however, and Aunt Dinah called old Winnie Dobbs, and went listlessly to her room to make her toilet for her solitary dinner.