“And are you quite sure of that? Does everybody think him a son of Lord Winterbourne’s?” said Agnes.
“Well, miss, my lord’s not like to own to it—to shame hisself,” said Hannah; “but they’re none so full of charity at the Hall as to bother with other folkses children. My lord’s kep’ him since they were babies, and sent the lawyer hisself to fetch him when Mr Louis ran away. Bless you, no; there ain’t no doubt about it. Whose son else could he be?”
“But if that was true, he would have no rights. And what did Miss Bridget mean by rights?” asked Agnes, in a very low tone, blushing, and half ashamed to speak of such a subject at all.
Hannah, however, who did not share in all the opinions of respectability, but had a leaning rather, in the servant view of the question, to the pariah of the great old house, took up somewhat sharply this unguarded opinion. “Miss,” said Hannah, “you’ll not tell me that there ain’t no rights belonging Mr Louis. The queen on the throne would be glad of the likes of him for a prince and an heir; and Miss Bridget was well acquaint in all the ways of the Riverses, and was as fine to hear as a printed book: for the matter of that,” added Hannah, solemnly, “Miss Taesie, though she would not go through the park-gates to save her life, had a leaning to Mr Louis too.”
“And who is Miss Taesie?” said Agnes.
“Miss,” said Hannah, in a very grave and reproving tone, “you’re little acquaint with our ways; it ain’t my business to go into stories—you ask your papa.”
“So I will, Hannah; but who is Miss Taesie?” asked Agnes again, with a smile.
Hannah answered only by placing her salad on the tray, and carrying it solemnly to the parlour. Amused and interested, Agnes stood by the kitchen fireside thinking over what she had heard, and smiling as she mused; for Miss Taesie, no doubt, was the Honourable Anastasia Rivers, beneath whose name, in the old exercise-book, stood that odd B. A.
CHAPTER XVI.
WINTERBOURNE.
The next day the family walked forth in a body, to make acquaintance with the “new neighbourhood.” There was Papa and Mamma first of all, Mrs Atheling extremely well dressed, and in all the cheerful excitement of an unaccustomed holiday; and then came Agnes and Marian, pleased and curious—and, wild with delight, little Bell and Beau. Hannah, who was very near as much delighted as the children, stood at the door looking after them as they turned the angle of the grassy path. When they were quite out of sight, Hannah returned to her kitchen with a brisk step, to compound the most delicious of possible puddings for their early dinner. It was worth while now to exercise those half-forgotten gifts of cookery which had been lost upon Miss Bridget; and when everything was ready, Hannah, instead of her black ribbon, put new white bows in her cap. At sight of the young people, and, above all, the children, and in the strange delightful bustle of “a full house,” hard-featured Hannah, kind and homely, renewed her youth.