To begin with, she was American, that fact in itself was quite without precedent. The entire clerical annals of the diocese did not furnish a like example. This, to any right-minded judgment, was as much as an insult to the parishioners, who were in consequence put to much trouble and inconvenience in rubbing up their imaginations to tackle the case, having no previous experience to go upon.
A deceased Colonel, of whom they knew a great deal too much, and a living peer, of whom on the contrary, they knew a great deal too little, both inhabitants of the county, had indeed married Americans, the results in the one case being disastrous; of the other they possessed no proven data, but they were at least at liberty to draw their own conclusions.
But for a parson to do this thing! It was unheard-of, and partook of the nature of a scandal.
Then Mrs. Fellowes was pretty and gay, and it must be confessed chic.
They could have put up with the prettiness and even the brightness,—they were used to certain varieties of both these things in their own girls,—but the chicness!—that was the quality their souls struck against, it seemed expressly to have been sent by Satan himself “to buffet them withal”. And the girl’s dress for a clergyman’s wife, was simply audacious! And yet when a large and representative female conclave had met and dissected her “things” over half a dozen teas, they were forced to the conclusion that she had not a complex or expensive article in her whole wardrobe.
“So much the worse,” Lady Mary, the leader of the parish ton, remarked, and with some reason too, “it shows that it is not the clothes that stamp the girl, it is the girl who stamps the clothes. There is something fundamentally wrong there.”
This being put in the form of an axiom spread widely, and carried much weight.
This was four years ago, however, and things had changed a good deal. Mrs. Fellowes’ husband was no fool, he knew what he was about when he brought home, as the finish to the one long holiday of his life, the little New England girl to be his helpmate.
CHAPTER V.
“Now, Ruth,” said Mr. Fellowes when he had finished and despatched his note, and, lighting a cigarette, settled himself in his armchair opposite to her, “I’ll yield you up all I know. It was the queerest interview I ever had with that queer pair.—You needn’t wriggle with anticipation, my dear, no human creature could reproduce the scene with any justice to himself or to his subject.—Waring had most palpably put on for the occasion a brisk man-of-the-world air that was superb, but his wife seemed dreamier than ever, and limper, and her hat looked rather askew.”