"Now we are in Fransdale," said Mr. Cooper.
They were labouring along, in narrow, sandy, toilsome windings, when the hoot of a motor, up somewhere over their heads, made Mr. Cooper start. He was leading the mare, and proceeded to drag her as far as he possibly could to the side of the lane—half-way up the hedge, in fact. The next moment the car came in sight, tearing downhill at a speed which was evidently calculated upon the certainty of clear roads. It began to bray loudly, as though, in response to the warning, the vicar could cause his dog-cart to vanish into thin air. Millie surveyed it with interest, and as it whizzed by, within an inch of their off-wheel, she caught sight of a young, handsome, bored face, and that of an older man beside it. They raised their hats as they swept by, having most narrowly missed smashing the cart to fragments: but the vicar seemed quite pleased, and not at all annoyed.
"Sir Joseph Burmester and his son—our big land-owners hereabouts," he explained.
"Oh!" said his niece; adding, after reflection: "Are they our social equals?"
For some reason, the question annoyed the vicar; he relapsed into silence.
Mrs. Cooper prided herself upon keeping all her Southern customs up here in the North. When Melicent came downstairs to tea, she saw none of that wonderful pastry without which no Cleveshire tea-table is complete. Her five girl-cousins and their governess were assembled to be introduced to their new relative. They stared at her with a passive and stony indifference. Madeline was seventeen, Gwendolen sixteen, Theodora fifteen, Barbara fourteen, and Beatrice twelve. Even Beatrice was quite as tall as Melicent; and the elder girls were vast, the two eldest nearing five-foot-ten, after the fashion of the modern girl, and not in the least as yet knowing how to manage their swelling proportions. In their outgrown, scanty frocks, and big, thick legs, they looked rather like men in a farce, dressed up to represent little girls. Two or three of them were handsome, but they all struck Millie as singularly expressionless. Their faces were like masks.
Mrs. Chetwynd-Cooper's hair was pale flaxen, and being brushed away very tightly from the face, gave the impression of her having no hair at all. The odd look of being out of date, achieved in her husband's case by side-whiskers, was bestowed upon her by long earrings. The couple looked like the Papa and Mamma of a virtuous family, in a very early Victorian story-book.
Mrs. Cooper sat down to table with a determined cheerfulness which Melicent soon learned was her characteristic. It somehow succeeded in producing deep depression in others. At least, nobody spoke; and the girl found herself with her attention fixed, with a fatal fascination, upon her aunt's smile and her aunt's earrings, and longing for something to divert her eye.
Her uncle's depression was a very real and well-defined thing that evening. There was something about his new niece which he found himself disliking with quite unchristian vehemence. He had confided to his wife that extreme care would be necessary, and that the new-comer must by no means be let loose among their own children. Mrs. Cooper could not share his depression. She had the boundless self-confidence of an entirely stupid woman. She had made her own girls models of all that girls should be. No slang was ever heard in the Vicarage; no loud voices; no unruly expression of opinion. Why should she not be equally successful with this raw material, doubtless sent by Providence to her good guidance?
Melicent sat watching her five munching cousins, and thought they were something like cows. Their eyes were vacant, their appetites steady. She was just wondering whether all talking at meals was forbidden, when Gwendolen, who sat next her, tossed back her long hair, and asked: