He had set his heart upon being back in time to attend the final sale at Homewood; but if he was quick Mr. Swanland proved quicker, and before his return another act in the liquidation play was finished, and all the vats, coppers, mills, boilers, and other paraphernalia in which Mortomley's soul had once rejoiced were scattered to the four winds of Heaven.
When Dolly saw the preliminary advertisements announcing that the extensive and valuable plant of a colour-maker would shortly be offered for sale, she lowered her flag so far as to write to Mr. Dean asking him to buy Black Bess.
She requested this, she said, as a special favour,—she would be more than grateful if he could give the pretty creature a good home. To which Mr. Dean indited a long and pompous reply. He stated that his stables only held so many horses, that each stall had its occupant, that he had long given up riding, and that Black Bess would not be a match for any carriage horse of the height he habitually purchased; he remarked that she was too light even for his single brougham, and that it would be a pity to keep such an animal merely to run to and from the station in a dog-cart. Finally, Mr. Dean believed excessive affection for any dumb animal to be a mistake; Providence had given them for the use of man, and if when a horse ceased to be of service to a person in a superior rank of life, it were retained in idleness from any feeling of sentiment, what, asked Mr. Dean, would those in an inferior station do for animals? This was not very apropos of Black Bess—at that stage of her existence, at all events,—but it was apropos of the fact that Mr. Dean had the day before sold a horse which for fifteen years had served him faithfully, and got its knees cut through the carelessness of a spruce young groom,—sold this creature to which he might well have given the run of the meadows in summer and the straw-yards in winter, for six pounds.
Antonia, on whom all the traditions of Homewood had not been spent in vain, remonstrated with her husband on "the cruelty of sending the old thing away," but her words produced no effect on Mr. Dean.
"Archie Mortomley never would sell a horse that had been long about Homewood," she said.
"I dare say not, my dear," answered Mr. Dean; "but then you see it is attention to these small details that has enabled me to keep Elm Park. It was the want of that attention which drove Mr. Mortomley out of Homewood."
Upon the top of this came Mrs. Mortomley's letter. Mr. Dean devoted a whole morning to answering that letter, and then insisted upon reading his effusion aloud to his wife.
"I think I have put that very clearly," he said when he had quite finished; "I hope Mrs. Mortomley will lay what I have expressed to heart."
"If you knew anything of Mrs. Mortomley you would never send her that epistle," retorted Antonia. "She will read it to her friends, she will mimic your tone, your accent, your manner; she will borrow a pair of eyeglasses, and let them drop off her nose in the middle of each sentence; and, in a word, she will make the written wisdom of Mr. Dean of Elm Park as thoroughly ridiculous as I have often heard her make your spoken remarks."