The extreme simplicity of her own bringing up—the modesty of the Bayview establishment—the unpretending fashion of receiving and visiting that at one time obtained in Ireland rendered the rules and ceremonies of—to quote Mrs. Hartley—“a more advanced civilization” irksome in the extreme to a person who had from her childhood upwards been accustomed to an exceptional freedom of action; whilst after the inoffensive familiarity of Irish servants, the formality and decorum of Mrs. Hartley’s highly-trained domestics seemed cold and heartless.
In a word, Miss Grace was more than slightly home-sick; in all probability, had she possessed a home to go back to, she would have received some early communication compelling her to return to Ireland.
All of this, or at least much of this, so shrewd a woman as Mrs. Hartley could not fail to notice; she had expected the desire to manifest itself, though not exactly so violently, and she was accordingly quite prepared to let it run its course without much interference from her.
It was not in her nature, however, to refrain altogether from a little raillery on the subject.
“The cakes and the ales of this gormandizing land will find favour in your eyes some day, Grace,” she remarked. “I do not despair of hearing you confess other forms of diet may be as appetizing as milk and potatoes.”
“I can fancy many things more appetizing than potatoes as boiled in England,” Miss Moffat would retort, not without some slight sign of irritation. Her temper was not quite so sweet, Mrs. Hartley noticed, as had been the case formerly.
“She will not make an amiable old maid,” considered her friend. “As she gets on in life her wine will turn to vinegar; she is the kind of woman who ought to have a husband and half-a-dozen children, to prevent her growing morbid and disagreeable—like all other philanthropists, she has had some serious disappointments, and I must say they have not improved her. She ought to marry; but, like her, I confess I cannot imagine who the happy man is to be. Beauty, wealth, amiability! she has the three gifts men value most, and yet it seems to me that not a man suitable in any solitary respect has ever yet asked her to be his wife—except John Riley. I wonder what he would think of her now? Who could have imagined she would ever have developed into so lovely a creature?”
There were two things by which Mrs. Hartley set great store—competence and beauty.
Poor people and ugly people were to her as repellent as many diseases. Genteel poverty was one of her abhorrences, plain faces another; and it may therefore be imagined that when she found two most desirable advantages combined in one human being, she gave way to exultation so perfectly frank that it struck Grace with amazement.
“What a beautiful creature you are!” she said as, Grace seated beside her in the carriage, they drove along the level English roads to Mrs. Hartley’s house.