“You’re to stay for the night, mind, when you do come,” said Silas. “An aunt o’ mine, a Mrs Royal, a werry decent body, can share my bed with yer, and I’ll go and have a shake-down at Peters’s. You’ll be sure to come in good time, and a-lookin’ yer best; Jill.”
“Yes, Silas,” she replied, with a meekness which would have puzzled him very much had he known her better. He was too happy and content, however, for even the faintest suspicion of anything not being quite right to enter his mind.
Jill Robinson was like the mignonette and the lavender and the cherry-pie for sweetness of character, while she resembled the crimson rose-bud in the richness of her beauty.
Yes, surely the Lord had given up chastening Silas when so great a prize as Jill was to be his.
The invited guests were only too eager to come to the tea-drinking. Notwithstanding the disapproval of the congregation at Silas’s choice, those of them who were favoured with an invitation to see his bride were by no means slow of availing themselves of it.
Mrs Hibberty Jones and Miss Mary Ann Hatton went, it is true, under a protest, but Hibberty Jones himself and Peters owned that they did not object to seeing beauty when they could do so in a good cause. It was distinctly to Silas’s advantage that the foremost members of the congregation should support him at this critical juncture, and if possible take early steps to convert Jill to her future husband’s faith. So, dressed in their best, the homely village folk walked across the fields, on this lovely summer’s evening, to Silas Lynn’s tea-drinking.
Silas had ordered a new suit of strong rough frieze for his wedding. The suit had been made in a great hurry by the village tailor, and was sombre both in its cut and its colour. But the gloomy effect of coat and trousers was much relieved by a gay waistcoat of white with a coloured sprig bedecking it all over. This waistcoat had belonged to Silas’s father, and was regarded in the family as a very precious heirloom. He wore in his button-hole three large crimson carnations, and altogether made an imposing spectacle as he stood in the porch of the little cottage to receive his visitors.
Aunt Hannah was busy inside the house. She wore a dark plum-coloured dress, and a little tight black net cap, tied under her chin with a bow of yellow ribbon.
Jill had not yet arrived, and Silas, while he held out his great hands in hearty greeting to his visitors, could not help letting his eyes wander anxiously up the path which led from the railway station direct to the cottage.
“How do you do, Mr Lynn?” said Miss Mary Ann Hatton in an acrid voice. “Allow me to congratulate you. Oh, pray don’t let us keep your hattention. Where the heyes stray is where the ’eart is to be found. Ain’t that so, Mrs Jones?”