He laughed off the alarm as he had done his father's and brother's a few minutes before, the line of conduct completely disarming all parties. She would not tolerate Miss Chester, they would not tolerate his marriage at all: that was plain. Isaac Thornycroft did not care openly to oppose his family, or be opposed by them: he let the subject drop out of remembrance, and left the future to the future. But he said not a word of this to Anna; she suspected nothing of it, and was just as contented as he to let things take their course in silence. To her there seemed but one possible calamity in the world; and that lay in being separated from him.
Sitting there on the hearth-rug, in the October evening, her eyes on the small print by the firelight, getting dim now, Anna's heart was a-glow within her, for that evening was to be spent with Isaac Thornycroft. A gentleman with his daughter was staying for a couple of days at the Red Court, and Anna had been asked to go there for the evening, and bear the young lady company.
"My dear," whispered Mrs. Copp, in the midst of her knitting, "is it not getting late? You will have the daylight quite gone."
Anna glanced up. It was getting late; but Isaac Thornycroft had said to her, "I shall fetch you." Still the habit of implicit obedience was, as ever, strong upon her, and she would fain have started there and then, in compliance with the suggestion.
"What a noise Sarah's making!"
"So she is," assented Mrs. Copp, as a noise like the bumping about of boxes, followed by talking, grew upon their ears. Another moment, and Sarah opened the door.
"A visitor," she announced, in an uncompromising voice, and the captain started up, prepared to explode a little at being aroused. Which fact Sarah was no doubt anticipating, and she spoke again.
"It is your mother, sir."
"Yes, it's me, Sam;" cried an upright wiry lady, very positive and abrupt in manner. Her face looked as if weather-beaten, and she wore large round tortoiseshell spectacles.
"Who's that?" she cried, sitting down on the large sofa, as Anna stood up in her pretty silk dress, with the pink ribbons in her hair. "Who? The daughter of the Reverend James Chester and his first wife! You are very like your father, child, but prettier. Where's my sea-chest to go, Sam?"