"Ah, your mother!" with a little sigh. "Will she ever like me, do yon think, Everard? Her letter was so cold, so formal, so chilling!"
For this high-stepping young lady who had ridden at the fox-hunt with reckless daring, who was so regally uplifted and imperious, had grown very humble in her new love.
Harrie had written to my lady an humble, girlish, appealing little letter, and had received the coldest of polite replies with the "bloody hand" and the Kingsland crest emblazoned proudly, and the motto of the house in good old Norman French, "Strike once, and strike well."
Since then there had been no correspondence. Miss Hunsden was too proud to sue for her favor, and Sir Everard loved her too sensitively to expose her to a possible rebuff.
My lady was unutterably offended by her son's desertion of a whole winter. She was nothing to him now. This bold, masculine girl with the horrible boy's name was his all in all now.
Sir Everard Kingsland met with a very cold reception from his lady mother upon his return to Devonshire. She listened in still disdain to his glowing accounts of the marvels the summer would work in the grand old place.
"And all this for the penniless daughter of a half-pay captain; and
Lady Louise might have been his wife."
Sir Everard ran heedlessly on.
"You and Milly shall retain your old rooms, of course," he said, "and have them altered or not, just as you choose. Harrie's room shall be in the south wing—she likes a sunny, southern prospect—and the winter and summer drawing-rooms must be completely refurnished; and the conservatory has been sadly neglected of late, and the oak paneling in the dining-room wants touching up. Hadn't you better give all the orders for your own apartments yourself? The others I will attend to."
"My orders are already given," Lady Kingsland said, with frigid hauteur. "My jointure house is to be fitted up. Before you return from your honey-moon I will have quitted Kingsland Court with my daughter. Permit Mildred and me to retain our present apartments unaltered until that time; then the future Lady Kingsland can have the old rooms disfigured with as much gilding and stucco and ormolu as she pleases."