"Infallible," laughed Dorothy.
"I don't know, Mistress Dorothy, my bump of self-esteem has been rather growing lately. Did you ever see any child so improved as Evelyn, and did not I say that it would be better to have a governess at home than to send her to school?"
"You did, Roger, and I can never thank God and you enough for bringing us such a governess as Mrs. Falconer." And Dorothy looked up with grateful affection into her husband's face.
"So that's well, my wife," said he, fondly; "and don't you think we may be content without those further 'advantages' that were talked about some time ago? What more does Evelyn need than to be a well-informed, well-mannered gentlewoman like her mother before her? And she is in a fair way to be that between you."
"If you are content, so am I," said the mother, almost blushing at the sweet flattery. "I have no desire to fit our daughter for anything but the simple quiet duties of our country life."
"And if she must see the world by-and-by, why, you know, we might all go to London for a month or two; when perhaps that lad, if he should go there after all, would be the better for a home in it," added he.
The tears sprang to Mrs. Hazelwood's eyes—tears of thankfulness and pleasure; but the Squire preferred to be thanked with smiles. His generous thought for Guy was just what she wished, but for Evelyn 'the world' to which he alluded was not particularly desirable in her eyes.
"Great cities seem especially man's world," she said, "and while Evelyn is happy with God's world of nature round her, we need not invent other attractions. She and Maude are diligent fellow students, and when books have done their part, it will be time enough to seek a new field of inquiry."
This was a perfectly congenial arrangement to the Squire, who had an undefined dread of some crisis in young lady life, when according to established usage she had to 'come out,' and cease ever to go in again as pure and true and happy as she was before the ordeal. Anything that would retard or avert this fate for his Evelyn was acceptable to her father. With reference to society, his house was open with liberal hospitality to all comers; but the invited guests were those whose principles and characters he respected, and with whom his family associated in friendly freedom.
One morning when the Squire was preparing for the first meet of the hunt that season, his horse was brought, by Mrs. Hazelwood's desire, round to the front entrance of the house, and under the old-fashioned porch, which terminated on either side by a short flight of steps, she stood with Evelyn by her side to see him mount, one holding his riding gloves, the other his whip.