Lady Mary Woodville shrugged her shoulders; she had been a frequent visitor at her grandmother's, the Dowager Lady Rivers, and this lady's influence and opinions had fostered in the heart of Lady Mary her natural pride of birth, and a foolish contempt for those who had to work for their living.
"You have not much to boast of, Mary," said her brother, laughing, as he rose from his seat and approached the window, "if, as papa suggests, we are descended from the gipsies."
"What nonsense you talk, Robert!" replied his sister.
"Well, perhaps I ought to have addressed you, Dora, instead of Mary, for with your brown face and your flashing black eyes you are an out-and-out little gipsy;" but as the youth spoke, his glance of affection too plainly proved that the "little gipsy" was a favourite sister.
"I am like papa, Robert," she replied, good-naturedly.
"Of course you are, my dear," said Lady Rivers, "and he has nothing of the gipsy about him; but do not waste time in talking nonsense.—Robert, I thought you asked Dora to ride with you this morning, and the sooner you order the horses the better, for this bright April weather may not continue all day."
Lord Robert hastened to follow his mother's advice, while Lady Dora gladly escaped from the room to prepare for her ride.
This little peep into the domestic habits and manners of the family at Englefield will give our readers some idea of the pleasant home in which James Halford met his future wife, Clara Marston, in the years gone by.
The present Earl Rivers, who had been Dr. Halford's pupil for three years from the age of twenty-one, had reached his forty-fifth year at the time of which we write. Well might Lady Rivers assert that there was nothing of the gipsy in his appearance, in spite of the dark eyes and hair in which, as well as in features, his youngest daughter so strongly resembled him. Lord Rivers' tall, commanding figure, noble bearing, and marked features belonged to the class which an Englishman designates aristocratic. Yet he had no proud assumption of superiority on this account. Although polished and refined, and a true English gentleman of the olden times, his manners were simple and unobtrusive; and now, as he rides his horse slowly through the park and along the road to the station, he recalls with pain the fact that he has neglected his friend Dr. Halford long enough for his little daughter Fanny, whose marriage is in the Times, to grow to womanhood and become a bride.
"I will pay them a visit next week," was his decision at length, as he put his horse into a canter.