“Do not hurry for me,” the young man said. He was quite at his ease talking to Philip Selby, whom it pleased his wife to see putting on mildly the air of a man of the world when any invasion came from that big place into the Fell-country. When they had gone to “put on their things,” young Brotherton made himself very agreeable to the master of the house. He spoke of my “cousins” as if he had known them all his life: though all the time there was a look of semi-amusement on his face. He had stumbled into a new life without knowing anything about it. The servants up till after twelve, which was spoken of with bated breath as a wonderful interruption of rule; the master and mistress, who “were not exacting” after that tremendous vigil; the freshness and sweetness of the rural place, all produced a great effect upon him. He thought it a kind of Arcadia, an Arcadia dashed with reminiscences of hot supper, and some vagaries of homely fashion which struck Brotherton as more amusing than all the similar vagaries which he had come across before. When the ladies came down again, Joan attired in a bonnet which was more striking in its colours and composition than was common, ready to drive her phaeton to the White House, and Lydia in her riding habit, his pleasure in the sunshiny expedition he was about to make was as great as his amusement in finding himself a member of the primitive society, almost of the family, which was so simple and so kind. He watched the packing of the phaeton with laughing eyes. Lydia’s box, containing her evening dress no doubt, was carefully fastened on behind, and in front, in the vacant seat, was a basket, in which there were a number of delicacies from the feast, which Mrs. Selby thought “Mother might like: or if she doesn’t care for them herself, it will always be a pleasure to give them away,” said Joan; “though you must not think, Mr. Brotherton, that I am forgetting our own poor folk. A little bit that is out of the way, that comes from the party—everybody likes that.” He helped to lift the basket into the phaeton almost with reverence. The feast of last night became beautiful to him in this light. How many had he seen, much more delicate and costly, of which the fragments went to the dogs, nobody dreaming of the “poor folk!” Mr. Selby put Liddy upon her horse while the young stranger was helping with the basket, and this he felt to be a sacrifice on his part, in consonance with the kind and homely charity that breathed about the place. Then Philip Selby promised to walk over to join his wife in the afternoon, and the party went off, Mrs. Selby in advance, talking cheerily to her horse, bidding him to get on, and not bother her with a whip. Liddy and the young man set out soberly together. They did not say much for the first mile or two. Now that they were alone together they were a little abashed by each other. He thought her the prettiest girl he had ever seen—which was by no means the case, for Liddy, though very pretty, was not a wonder of loveliness; and she thought him, with more reason, the finest gentleman that had ever came across her path. She asked herself how it was that he was so different from Raaf Selby? but could not make any reply. He was like nobody she had ever seen. “This is what a gentleman is, a real gentleman, the kind that goes to Court and sees the Queen; the kind that is in Parliament and rules the country; the kind that everybody tries to be like, and that Raaf Selby would fain be taken for—he!” Liddy said to herself; and she was abashed, and did not talk much to her companion. Indeed it was not till they were near the White House that she ventured to ask a question which had been long on her lips.
“Are you a member of Parliament, Mr. Brotherton?”
“Oh, no,” he said, laughing; “it is my father you are thinking of. I have never attained that dignity. I ought to have told you more about myself before I asked admittance; but Mrs. Selby was so kind. I am a briefless barrister, if you know what that is.”
“A lawyer with nothing to do,” said Liddy; “one reads about them in books.”
Young Brotherton laughed. “It is as good a definition as another,” he said; “but sometimes it means only some one who has pretended to study for a profession which is all a pretence together, and never comes to anything. That is my case: and I have been wandering over all the world.”
“In Italy?” asked Lydia, with eager eyes.
“Oh, yes. You are fond of Italy? I daresay we shall find we have sympathies on that point. My mother is a great devotee; she would live there all the year round if we would let her. I wonder which is your favourite spot.”
“Oh!” cried Lydia, with all her heart in her voice, “I have no favourite spot; I only know it by name. Italy is where everything happens—all the stories are there: and besides,” she added, “I have a private reason too.”
He looked at her with some curiosity, and a great deal of interest. What could the private reason of a young girl be? “You have, perhaps,” he said, “friends there?”
Lydia shook her head. “If you are our cousin, Mr. Brotherton, and going to know all about us—”