Then it was Anne who came to Heathcote’s aid. ‘You are not afraid of seeming frivolous?’ she said, giving him the kindest look he had yet seen in her eyes; and his heart was touched by it: he had not known that Anne’s eyes had been so fine—‘and it will please everybody. The county requires to be stirred up now and then. We like to have something to talk about, to say, “Are you going to the So-and-so’s on the 25th?”’
‘An admirable reason certainly for trouble and expense. If you were electioneering, it might be reasonable; but I presume your woman’s rights are not so advanced yet as that. Miss Anne Mountford can’t stand for the county!’
‘I don’t think she is likely to try, father,’ said Anne, ‘whatever might be the rights—or wrongs.’
‘You must not think, Mr. Heathcote,’ said Mrs. Mountford anxiously, ‘that Anne has anything to say to women’s rights. She is far too sensible. She has her own ways of thinking, but she is neither absurd nor strong-minded——’
‘I hope you do not think me weak-minded, mamma,’ Anne said, with a soft laugh.
And then little more was said. Mr. Mountford half rose and mumbled that grace after meat which leaves out all the more ethereal part of the repast as, we suppose, a kind of uncovenanted mercies for which no thanks are to be uttered; and after a while the ladies left the room. It was cold, but the whole frosty world outside lay enchanted under the whitening of the moon. The girls caught up fur cloaks and shawls as they went through the hall, and stepped outside involuntarily. The sky was intensely blue; the clouds piled high in snowy masses, the moon sailing serenely across the great expanse, veiling herself lightly here and there with a film of vapour which the wind had detached from the cloud-mountains. These filmy fragments were floating across the sky at extraordinary speed, and the wind was rising, whirling down showers of leaves. The commotion among the trees, the sound of the wind, the rapid flight of the clouds, all chimed in with Anne’s mood. She took hold of her sister’s arm with gentle force. ‘Stay a little, Rose—it is all quiet inside, and here there is so much going on: it is louder than one’s thoughts,’ Anne said.
‘What do you mean by being louder than your thoughts? Your thoughts are not loud at all—not mine at least: and I don’t like those dead leaves all blowing into my face; they feel like things touching you. I think I shall go in, Anne.’
‘Not yet, dear. I like it: it occupies one in spite of one’s self. The lawn will be all yellow to-morrow with scattered gold.’
‘You mean with scattered leaves; of course it will,’ said Rose. ‘When the wind is high like this it brings the leaves down like anything. The lime trees will be stripped, and it is a pity, for they were pretty. Everything is pretty this year. Papa has been to Hunston,’ she said, abruptly, looking Anne in the face; but it was very difficult even for Rose’s keen little eyes to distinguish in the moonlight whether or not Anne knew.
Anne took very little notice of this bit of news. ‘So Saymore told me. Did Mr. Heathcote see the church, I wonder? I hope some one told him how fine it was, and that there were some Mountford monuments.’