It may here be noted that none of the four mourners took the slightest notice of Mr. Delaney or of Mrs. Dolman. To them it was as if these two grown-up spectators did not exist—they were all lost in their own intensely important world.
"Well," said Mrs. Dolman, as she turned away with her brother, "of all the heathenish and wicked nonsense that I was ever permitted to witness, this beats everything. It is a right good thing—yes, I will say it frankly, David—that you are going abroad, and that your benighted children are handed over to me. When you come back in a year or two—I assure you, my dear brother, I do not wish to hurry you—but when you come back in a few years you will see, please Providence, very different children waiting to welcome you."
"Well, Jane," said David Delaney, "I have arranged to give the children to you, and I hope to Heaven I am doing right; but do not spoil them whatever you do, for to me and to their sainted mother they were ever the sweetest little quartette that breathed the breath of life." Mr. Delaney's eyes filled with sudden tears as he said these words. "Good-by, Rub-a-Dub," he whispered as he left the garden. "Yes, there are many good-bys in the air just now."
CHAPTER VII.
BUT ANN COULD NOT HELP LETTING OUT NOW AND THEN.
The Rectory at Super-Ashton was a large, sunny, cheerful house. It was filled with every modern convenience, and possessed plenty of rooms papered with light, bright-looking papers, and painted also in cheerful colors. The windows were large and let in every scrap of sunshine; the passages and hall and stairs were broad and roomy; the nurseries and the children's rooms were models of comfort; the servants were all well behaved and thoroughly accustomed to their duties; the meals were punctual to a moment; in fact, nothing was left to chance at Super-Ashton Rectory.
Mrs. Dolman was the life and soul of this extremely orderly English home. She was one of the most active little women in the world. She invariably got up, summer and winter, soon after six o'clock, and might be seen bustling about the house, and bustling about the garden, and bustling about the parish from that moment until she retired to rest again, somewhere between ten and eleven at night. She was never exactly cross, but she was very determined. She had strict ideas, and made everyone in the parish not only respect her and look up to her, but live up to her rule of life. She was, as a matter of fact, thought a great deal more of by the parishioners than her husband, the Reverend William Dolman, and the real Rector of Super-Ashton.
Mr. Dolman was a very large man, tall in stature and broad. He was also fat and loosely built. He had a kindly face and a good-humored way of talking. He preached very fair sermons on Sundays, and attended to his duties, but without any of the enthusiasm which his wife displayed.