CHAPTER VII.
"O THE RARE SPRING-TIME!"
Allan called at the Grove two days after the dance—called at the friendly hour when there was a certainty of afternoon tea, if Mrs. Mornington were at home; and when he thought it likely that Miss Vincent would be with her aunt.
"She will almost live at the Grove," he thought, as he walked towards that comfortable mansion, which was nearly a mile from Beechhurst. "Marsh House is so near. There is a path across the meadows by which she can walk in dry weather. A girl living alone with her father will naturally turn to her aunt for companionship, will take counsel with her upon all household affairs, and will run in and out every day."
It was a disappointment, after having made up his mind in this way, to see no sign of Suzette's presence in the drawing-room at the Grove. Mrs. Mornington was sitting in the verandah with her inevitable work-basket, just as he had found her a fortnight before, when her brother's advent at Marsh House and the dance at the Grove were still in the future.
She received him with her accustomed cordiality, but she did not ask him what he thought of her niece, though he was dying to be questioned. An unwonted shyness prevented his beginning the subject. He sat meekly sustaining a conversation about the parish, the wrongs and rights of the last clerical squabble, till his patience could hold out no longer.
"I hope General Vincent likes Matcham," he said at last, not daring to touch nearer to the subject which absorbed his thoughts.
"Oh yes, he likes the place well enough. He has lived his life, and can amuse himself with his poultry-yard, and will potter about with the hounds now and then when the cub-hunting begins. But I don't know how it will suit her."
"You think Miss Vincent would prefer a livelier place?"
"Of course she would prefer it. The question is, will she put up with this? She has never lived in an English village, though she has lived in out-of-the-way places in India; but, then, that was camp life, adventure, the sort of thing a girl likes. Her father idolizes her, and has taken her about everywhere with him since she left the Sacré Cœur at fourteen years of age. She has lived at Plymouth, at York, at Lucknow. She has had enough adulation to turn a wiser head than hers."