“And there are several people there who remember us, Mary,” said Mr Atheling. “My lord is not at home—that is one good thing; but I met a youth at Winterbourne yesterday, who lives at the Hall they say, and is a—a—sort of a son; a fine boy, with a haughty look, more like the old lord a great deal. And what did you say about Edgerley? There’s one of the Rivers’s married to an Edgerley. I won’t have such an acquaintance, if it turns out one of them.”
“Why, William?” said Mrs Atheling. “Fathers and daughters are seldom very much like each other. I do not care much about such an acquaintance myself,” added the good mother, in a moralising tone. “For though it may be very pleasant for the girls at first, I do not think it is good, as Miss Willsie says, to have friends far out of our own rank of life. My dear, Miss Willsie is very sensible, though she is not always pleasant; and I am sure you never can be very easy or comfortable with people whom you cannot have at your own house; and you know such a great lady as that could not come here.”
Agnes and Marian cast simultaneous glances round the room—it was impossible to deny that Mrs Atheling was right.
“But then the Old Wood Lodge, mamma!” cried Agnes, with sudden relief and enthusiasm. “There we could receive any one—anybody could come to see us in the country. If the furniture is not very good, we can improve it a little. For you know, mamma——.” Agnes once more blushed with shy delight and satisfaction, but came to a sudden conclusion there, and said no more.
“Yes, my dear, I know,” said Mrs Atheling, with a slight sigh, and a careful financial brow; “but when your fortune comes, papa must lay it by for you, Agnes, or invest it. William, what did you say it would be best to do?”
Mr Atheling immediately entered con amore into a consideration of the best means of disposing of this fabulous and unarrived fortune. But the girls looked blank when they heard of interest and percentage; they did not appreciate the benefits of laying by.
“Are we to have no good of it, then, at all?” said Agnes disconsolately.
Mr Atheling’s kind heart could not resist an appeal like this. “Yes, Mary, they must have their pleasure,” said Papa; “it will not matter much to Agnes’s fortune, the little sum that they will spend on the journey, or the new house. No, you must go by all means; I shall fancy it is in mourning for poor old Aunt Bridget, till my girls are there to pull her roses. If I knew you were all there, I should begin to think again that Winterbourne and Badgely Wood were the sweetest places in the world.”
“And there any one could come to see us,” said Marian, clapping her hands. “Oh, papa, what a good thing for Agnes that Aunt Bridget left you the Old Wood Lodge!”