'Ah, a puzzle,' said Ned, coming in; 'they are not at all fun, mamma. That beastly dissected map Aunt Louisa gave me—by Jove! I should like to take the little pieces and shy them at the birds.'
'But, mamma,' said Clara, 'are you sure it is only that? I never saw you playing with toys.'
'I wonder if I ever did?' said Mrs Burton, with a little gleam of surprise. 'Do you remember going to London once, Clara, and seeing your cousin, Norah Drummond? Should you like to have her here?'
'She was littler than me,' said Clara, promptly, 'though she was older. Papa told me. They lived in a funny little poky house. They had no carriages nor anything. She had never even tried to ride; fancy, mamma! When I told her I had a pony all to myself, she only stared. How different she would think it if she came here!'
Her mother looked at the child with a curious light in her cold blue eyes. She gave a little harsh laugh.
'If it were not that it is natural, and you cannot help it,' she said, 'I should like to whip you, my dear!'
CHAPTER XV.
Next morning the family at Dura paid a visit to the Gatehouse, to see all its capabilities, and arrange the changes which might be necessary. It was a bright morning after the rain, and they walked together down the dewy avenue, where the sunshine played through the network of leaves, and the refreshed earth sent up sweet odours. All was pleasant to sight and sound, and made a lightsome beginning to the working day. Mr Burton was pleased with himself and everything surrounding him. His children (he was very proud of his children) strolled along with their father and mother, and there was in Ned a precocious imitation of his own walk and way of holding himself which at once amused and flattered the genial papa. He was pleased by his boy's appreciation of his own charms of manner and appearance; and little Clara was like him, outwardly, at least, being of a larger mould than her mother. His influence was physically predominant in the family, and as for profounder influences these were not much visible as yet. Mrs Burton had a toilette fraîche of the costliest simplicity. Two or three dogs attended them on their walk—a handsome pointer and a wonderful hairy Skye, and the tiniest of little Maltese terriers, with a blue ribbon round its neck such as Clara had, of whose colours her dog was a repetition. When she made a rush now and then along the road, herself like a great white and blue butterfly, the dogs ran too, throwing up their noses in the air, till Ned, marching along in his knickerbockers, with his chest set out, and his head held up like his father's, whistled the bigger ones to his masculine side. It was quite a pretty picture this family procession; they were so well off, so perfectly supplied with everything that was pleasant and suitable, so happily above the world and its necessities. There was a look of wealth about them that might almost have seemed insolent to a poor man. The spectator felt sure that if fricasseed bank-notes had been good to eat, they must have had a little dish of that for breakfast. And the crown of all was that they were going to do a good action—to give shelter and help to the homeless. Many simple persons would have wept over the spectacle, had they known it, out of pure delight in so much goodness—if Mrs Burton, looking on with those clear cold blue eyes of hers, had not thrown upon the matter something of a clearer light.
The inspection was satisfactory enough, revealing space sufficient to have accommodated twice as many people. And Mr Burton found it amusing too; for Susan, who was in charge, was very suspicious of their motives, and anxious to secure that she should not be put upon in any arrangement that might be made. There was a large, quaint old drawing-room, with five glimmering windows—three fronting to the road and two to the garden—not French sashes, cut down to the ground, but old-fashioned English windows with a sill to them, and a solid piece of wall underneath. The chimney had a high wooden mantelpiece with a little square of mirror let in, too high up for any purpose but that of giving a glimmer of reflection. The carpet, which was very much worn, was partially covered by a tightly strained white cloth, as if the room had been prepared for dancing. The furniture was very thin in the legs and angular in its proportions; some of the chairs were ebony, with bands of faded gilding and covers of minute old embroidery, into which whole lives had been worked. The curtains were of old-fashioned, big-patterned chintz—like that we call Cretonne now-a-days—with brown linings. Everything was very old and worn, but clean and carefully mended. The looker-on felt it possible that the entrance of a stranger might so break the spell that all might crumble into dust at a touch. But yet there was a quaint, old-fashioned elegance—not old enough to be antique, but yet getting venerable—about the silent old house. Mr Burton was of opinion that it would be better with new red curtains and some plain, solid mahogany; but, if the things would do, considered that it was unnecessary to incur further expense. When all the necessary arrangements had been settled upon, the family party went on to the railway station. This was a very frequent custom with them. Mr Burton liked to come home in state—to notify his arrival by means of the high-stepping greys and the commotion they made, to his subjects; but he was quite willing to leave in the morning with graceful humility and that exhibition of family affection which brings even the highest potentates to a level with common men. When he arrived with his wife and his children and his dogs at the station, it was touching to see the devotion with which the station-master and the porters and everybody about received the great man. The train seemed to have been made on purpose for him—to have come on purpose all the way out of the Midland Counties; the railway people ran all along its length as soon as it arrived to find a vacant carriage for their demigod. 'Here you are, sir!' cried a smiling porter. 'Here you are, sir!' echoed the station-master, rushing forward to open the door. The other porter, who was compelled by duty to stand at the little gate of exit and take the tickets, looked gloomily upon the active service of his brethren, but identified himself with their devotion by words at least, since nothing else was left him. 'What d'ye mean by being late?' he cried to the guard. 'A train didn't ought to be late as takes gentlemen to town for business. You're as slow, you are, as if you was the ladies' express.'