Mrs. Ogden was pacified immediately, and held out her hand. "I thank you for that," she said, "you were very kind to th' childt; and I've been doin' a piece of needlework ever since for your wife, but it willn't be finished while Christmas."
"Mother, you shouldn't say 'your wife'—you should say 'her ladyship,'" observed the Lieutenant, in a low tone.
"My wife will be greatly obliged to you, Mrs. Ogden. I hope you will make her acquaintance before you leave the regiment; for I may say that you belong to the regiment now, since you have come to be Lieutenant Ogden's commanding officer."
Mrs. Anison had been first an astonished and then an amused auditor of this colloquy, but she ended it by offering Mrs. Ogden a cup of tea. Then the Colonel began to talk to Mrs. Anison. He had that hearty and frank enjoyment of the society of ladies which is not only perfectly compatible with morality, but especially belongs to it as one of its best attributes and privileges. Good women liked the Colonel, and the Colonel liked good women; he liked them none the less when they were handsome, as Mrs. Anison was, and when they could talk well and easily, as she did. Some women are distinguished by nature; and though Mrs. Anison had seen little of the great world, and the Colonel had seen a good deal of it, the difference of experience did not place a perceptible barrier between them. The time seemed to have passed rapidly for both when the visitor took his leave.
CHAPTER XX.
PHILIP STANBURNE IN LOVE.
If any rational and worldly-minded adviser had said to Philip Stanburne a month before, "Why don't you look out for some well-to-do cotton-spinner's daughter in Sootythorn? you might pick up a good fortune, that would mend the Stanithburn property, and you might find a nice well-educated girl, who would do you quite as much credit as if she belonged to one of the old families"—if any counsel of this kind had been offered to Philip Stanburne then, before he saw Alice Stedman, he would have rejected it at once as being altogether inadmissible. He, the representative of the house of Stanburne, connect himself with a family of cotton-spinners! He, the dutiful son of the Church, ally himself with a member of one of those heretical sects who insult her in her affliction! Our general views of things may, however, be very decided, and admit, nevertheless, of exception in favor of persons who are known to us. To hate Protestants in general—to despise the commercial classes as a body—is one thing; but to hate and despise a gentle maiden, whose voice sounds sweetly in our ears, is quite another thing.
"She's as perfect a lady as any I ever saw," thought Philip, as she walked before him in the garden at Arkwright Lodge. A closer social critic might have answered, that although Alice Stedman was a very admirable and good young woman, absolutely free from the least taint of vulgarity, she lacked the style and "go" of a young lady of the world. Her deficiency in this respect may, however, have gone far to produce the charm which attracted Philip. Alice had not the aplomb of a fine lady, nor the brilliance of a clever woman; but nature had given her a stamp of genuineness which is sometimes effaced by the attrition of society.