“But Lilias and I are strong and ‘capable,’ father,” said Mary, encouragingly. “We could work if needs were, for mother and the younger ones. Besides, you are not an old, or even an elderly man yet, papa.”
“I am not as young and by no means as strong as I have been,” said Mr Western with a sigh. “I don’t like this feeling in my head. I have never had anything like it before, and it makes me fidgety, though I have not said anything to make your mother uneasy. Perhaps it will be better now that I have spoken of it; it may be more nervousness than anything else.”
“I trust so, dear father,” said Mary, anxiously. “Are you not glad to have me back again? Didn’t you miss me dreadfully?” she added, trying to speak more lightly.
“Very much indeed, my dear. I dare say it affected my spirits more than I realised at the time. Yet I could wish, as I was saying, that all of you, you and Lilias especially, had more friends, more outside interests. I hope we have not been selfish and short-sighted in the way we have brought you up—keeping you too much to ourselves, as it were;” again Mr Western sighed. “It is possible, I suppose, to be too devoid of social ambition. By the way,” he went on, “I think that Mr Cheviott must be a very fine fellow. People took up an unreasonable prejudice against him in the country at first from his manner, which, I believe, is cold and stiff. But they are finding themselves mistaken. He must be exceeding clever, and, what is better, thoroughly right-minded. I have been very much pleased by some things I have heard of him lately; he has shown himself so liberal and yet sensible in his dealings with his tenantry.”
“Indeed,” said Mary. She was pleased to see her father roused to his usual healthy interest in such matters, yet wished devoutly the model proprietor in question had not been the master of Romary.
“That place has been grossly mismanaged in the old days,” continued Mr Western. “But it will be a very different story now. How I wish we had a squire of that kind here, there would be some hope then of doing practical and lasting good.”
“Still no squire is better than a bad one,” said Mary. “True, very true. How did you like Mr Cheviott, Mary? I was just thinking I should be rather pleased to make friends with him. He might be a good friend to the boys some day, and no one could say we had courted the acquaintance in the way your mother and I have always so deprecated.”
“No,” said Mary, feebly.
“Coming in such an altogether unexpected way, you see,” pursued Mr Western, who seemed “by the rule of contrary,” thought Mary, to be working himself up to increasing interest on the subject she was so anxious to avoid, “I should not have, by any means, the objection I have always had to such an acquaintance. They are sure to call—in fact, they cannot possibly avoid doing so.”
“I don’t know,” Mary moved herself to say, “I hardly think they will.”