OSWALD CRAY.
The house of Lady Oswald was an old-fashioned red brick mansion of moderate size, two storeys in height only, and with gable-ends. It was exceedingly comfortable inside, and was surrounded by rather extensive grounds. At the opposite end of the town to the station, it might have been thought that that vulgar innovation, the railroad, so especially obnoxious to Lady Oswald, would at least have spared it offensive contact; but that was not to be. There was no accounting for the curves and tracks taken by those lines of the junction, and one of them had gone off at a tangent to skirt the very boundary of her land.
Seated in the front drawing-room, the one chiefly used by Lady Oswald, was a woman of some forty years, attired in a neat green-coloured gown, and cap with white ribbons. This was Parkins, Lady Oswald's maid, recently promoted to be somewhat of a companion, for Lady Oswald began to dislike being much alone. A well-meaning faithful woman, with weak eyes and weak will, and given to tears on very slight occasions. Parkins had also been lately made housekeeper as well as companion, and the weekly accounts connected with that department threatened to be the bane of Parkins's life. Add them up she could not; make them come right she could not: and she could get neither mercy nor assistance from Lady Oswald, who had always been her own account-keeper, and never found any trouble in it. Two tradesmen's books were before Parkins now, and she was bending over them in despair, during her lady's absence.
"I can't as much as read the figures," she groaned; "how, then, am I to add 'em up? Last week there was an overcharge of ten shillings in this very butcher's book, and my lady found it out, and hasn't done talking to me for it yet. It isn't my fault; all folks are not born with a head for figures. And why can't tradespeople make their figures plain?"
Had she not been so absorbed by the book and its complications she might have seen the approach of a visitor. A tall and very gentlemanly man of some eight-and-twenty years, with a countenance that would have been remarkably frank and pleasing but for the expression of pride pervading it: nay, that was frank and pleasing in spite of the pride. He could not help the pride; it was innate, born with him; he did not make his own face, and the lines of pride were inherent in it. The pale features were regular, the hair dark, the eyes dark blue, and lying rather deep in the head, good and honest eyes they were, searching and truthful: and when he smiled, as he was smiling now, it made full amends for deficiencies, obliterating every trace of pride, and imparting a singular charm to the face.
His approach had been discerned by one of the maid-servants, and she had come to the hall-door and was holding it open. It was at her he had smiled, for in manner he was exceedingly affable. Perhaps the very consciousness of the pride that clung to him, and was his besetting sin, rendered him resolute that in manner at least he should not offend.
"How are you, Susan? Is Lady Oswald within?"
"No, sir, my lady's out," was the girl's reply, as she dropped a curtsey. "Parkins is in the drawing-room, sir, I think: I daresay she can tell whether my lady will be long."
He laid on the hall-table a small roll of paper or parchment that he carried, threw off a dusty light overcoat, and took up the roll again. Susan opened the drawing-room door.
"Mr. Oswald Cray."