"You, Cavendish! Who could have thought of seeing you here?"
"I am afraid I am rather presuming: but I could not be so near without coming to see you." Dick grew grave, as was incumbent in the circumstances, and though he had no doubt whatever of seeing the ladies added a sort of humble suggestion: "I am afraid I can scarcely hope to pay my respects?"
"You must come in and see my mother," Warrender said.
The house, as has been said, looked its best when shade and coolness were a necessity of the season; but the visitor who came with keen eyes, observing everything, not because he had any special object, but because he could not help it, took in in a moment the faded air of solid respectability, the shabbiness which does not mean poverty, the decent neglect, as of a place whose inhabitants took no thought of such small matters, which showed everywhere. It was not neglect, in the ordinary sense of the word, for all was carefully and nicely arranged, fresh flowers on the tables, and signs of living—but rather a composed and decorous content. The girls, as they were always called, were found, Chatty with her hands full of flowers and a number of china vases before her, standing at an old buffet in the hall, and Minnie just coming out of the dining-room, where she had been doing her morning needle-work, which was of a plain and homely description, not calculated to be seen by visitors. The old buffet in the hall was not like the mahogany catafalque in the other rooms, and the flowers were very fresh and the china of unappreciated antiquity. Perhaps these accessories helped to make the modest little picture of Charlotte arranging the flowers a pretty one; and she was young and fresh and modest and unconscious; her figure was pretty and light; her look, as she raised her head and blushed to see the little party of men, so guileless, frank, and good that, though the others, who were used to her, thought nothing of her, to Dick it appeared that Chatty was a very pleasant thing to see against the dim background of the old respectable house.
"It is Mr. Cavendish," said Minnie. "How curious! It is true sometimes, no doubt, as everybody says, that talk of an angel and you see its wings; but generally it is just the person whom one least thinks of who appears."
"That is very hard upon me," said Dick. "My mind has been so full of you for twenty-four hours that you ought to have thought a little upon me, if only on the theory of brain waves."
"I hope you don't believe in anything of that sort. How should you think of people when there is nothing to put you in mind of them? If we had been in Oxford, indeed—Come into the drawing-room; we shall find mamma there. And how is dear Mrs. Wilberforce?"
"She wants you all," said the rector, in a low voice aside, "to come over this afternoon to tea."
"To tea, when you have company! Oh, she could not—she never could expect such a thing!"
"Do you call one of your brother's friends company,—one? I should say it took three at least to constitute company. And I want Theo to come. Mind what I say. If you don't amuse him, Theo will think of nothing but going to Markland. He goes to Markland more than I like already."