“Ah, it is early days,” Miss Mildmay said, with a shake of her head. “And India is a very dissipated place. There are always things going on at an Indian station that keep people from thinking. By-and-by, when difficulties come—— But you must always stand her friend and keep her before your father’s eyes. I don’t know if Jane Shanks has told you—but the news is all over the town—the Cantrells have taken that place, you know, with the nice paddock and garden; the place the doctor was after—quite a gentleman’s little place. I forget the name, but it is near the Rectory—don’t you know?—a little to the right; quite a gentleman’s house.”
“I suppose Mr. Cantrell considers himself a gentleman now,” Katherine said, glad of the change of subject.
“Why, he’s a magistrate,” said Mrs. Shanks, “and could buy up the half of us—isn’t that the right thing to say when a man has grown rich in trade?”
“It is a thing papa says constantly,” said Katherine; “and I suppose, as that is what has happened to himself——”
“O my dear Katherine! you don’t suppose that for one moment! fancy dear Mr. Tredgold, with his colossal fortune—a merchant prince and all that—compared to old Cantrell, the baker! Nobody could ever think of making such a comparison!”
“It just shows how silly it is not to make up your mind,” said Miss Mildmay. “I know the doctor was after that house—much too large a house for an unmarried man, I have always said, but it was not likely that he would think anything of what I said—and now it is taken from under his very nose. The Cantrells did not take long to make up their minds! They go out and in all day long smiling at each other. I believe they think they will quite be county people with that house.”
“It is nice to see them smiling at each other—at their age they were just as likely to be spitting fire at each other. I shall call certainly and ask her to show me over the house. I like to see such people’s houses, and their funny arrangements and imitations, and yet the original showing through all the same.”
“And does George Cantrell get the shop?” Katherine asked. She had known George Cantrell all her life—better than she knew the young gentlemen who were to be met at Steephill and in whom it would have been natural to be interested. “He was always very nice to us when we were little,” she said.
“Oh, my dear child, you must not speak of George Cantrell. He has gone away somewhere—nobody knows where. He fell in love with his mother’s maid-of-all-work—don’t you know?—and married her and put the house of Cantrell to shame. So there are no shops nor goodwills for George. He has to work as what they call a journeyman, after driving about in his nice cart almost like a gentleman.”
“I suppose,” said Miss Mildmay, “that even in the lower classes grades must tell. There are grades everywhere. When I gave the poor children a tea at Christmas, the carpenter’s little girls were not allowed to come because the little flower-woman’s children were to be there.”