"'Tis vastly at your service, sir, with all it can offer of accommodation, if ever you and your lady care to occupy it for a season."
They were moving slowly towards the apple tree as they talked, Lucy Stobart hanging her head as she crept beside her husband, ashamed of her shrewish outburst, for which she expected a lecture by-and-by, and shedding a penitential tear or two behind a corner of her muslin apron.
"We shall not trespass on your ladyship's generosity. We have framed our lives upon a measure that would make Kilrush House out of the question."
"We are not rich enough to live in a great house," snapped Lucy, sinning again in the midst of her repentance.
"Say rather that we have done with the things that go with wealth and station, and have discovered the happiness that can be found in what fine people call poverty."
Nursemaid and baby had disappeared from the little lawn. Antonia took the seat Mr. Stobart indicated on the rustic bench; but her host and his wife remained standing, Lucy puzzled as to what she ought to do, George too much troubled in mind to know what he was doing.
"Mrs. Stobart, and you, sir, pray be seated. Let us be as friendly as we can," pleaded Antonia. "Be sure I came here in a friendly spirit. Pray be frank with me. I know nothing but what I read in the St. James's Evening Post. Is it true that you were once your cousin's acknowledged heir?"
"No, madam, it is not true. I was but his lordship's nearest relation."
"And he would have inherited his lordship's fortune if he had not married me," said Lucy, with irrepressible vehemence. "Sure you know 'twas so, George! And I can never forgive myself for having cost you a great fortune. And then Lord Kilrush must needs make a much lower marriage—on his death-bed, to spite you, for my father had never been——"
Her husband clapped his hand over her lips before she could finish the sentence. Antonia started up from the bench, pale with indignation.