“I dare say they would have waited if it had been warmer weather. What could have induced you to call upon Colonel Marchant? Colonel, indeed! Colonel of a Yorkshire Volunteer regiment! I don’t believe he was ever any higher than ensign in the 107th.”
“Very likely not. But I didn’t call upon the Colonel; I called upon my partners at the hunt ball.”
“And no doubt they received you with open arms!”
“They received me with true Yorkshire hospitality, and gave me some excellent tea, to say nothing of buttered plum-loaf.”
“And I dare say they were not in the least embarrassed at doing the honours to a strange young man, without mother, or aunt, or so much as a governess to keep them in countenance.”
“Why should they require to be kept in countenance? Surely five girls ought to be chaperon enough for each other?”
“They are the most unconventional young women I ever met with,” said the eldest Miss Champernowne, who was a good judge of the conventional.
“They are very pretty, poor things,” said Mrs. Vansittart. “It is sad for them to belong to such a father.”
“You might spare your pity, mother,” exclaimed her son, growing angry. “I don’t know anything about Colonel Marchant; but I haven’t the slightest doubt that the things that are said about him in this neighbourhood are the usual exaggerations and distortions of the truth. As for his daughters, I never made the acquaintance of five brighter, healthier, merrier girls. The household is full of interest for me; and I want you to call at the Homestead with me, mother, and see with your own eyes what manner of girls Eve Marchant and her sisters are.”
“I call upon them, Jack!” exclaimed his mother. “I, who am only a visitor here! What good could that do?”