"Kiss the bride," and Winn replied:
"No, thanks; not at present," looking like a stone wall, and sticking his hands in his pockets. The vicar, who had known him from a boy, did not press the point; but of course the dean looked surprised. Any dean would.
The reception afterwards would have been perfect but for the Staines, who tramped through everything. Estelle perpetually saw them bursting into places where they weren't wanted, and shouting remarks which sounded abusive but were meant to be cordial to cowering Fanshawes and Arnots. It was really not necessary for Sir Peter to say in the middle of the lawn that what Mr. Fanshawe wanted was more manure.
It seemed to Estelle that wherever she went she heard Sir Peter's resonant voice talking about manure.
Lady Staines was much quieter; still she needn't have remarked to Estelle's mother, "Well—I'm glad to see you have seven children, that looks promising at any rate." It made two unmarried ladies of uncertain age walk into a flower-bed.
Winn behaved abominably. He took the youngest Fanshawe child and disappeared with him into the stable yard.
Even Charles and James behaved better than that. They hurled well-chosen incomprehensible jokes at the clergyman's daughters—dreadful girls who played hockey and had known the Staines all their lives—and these ladies returned their missiles with interest.
It caused a good deal of noise, but it sounded hearty.
Isabella, being a clergyman's wife, talked to the Dean, who soon looked more astonished than ever.
At last it was all comfortably over. Estelle, leaning on her father's arm in pale blue, kissed her mother. Mrs. Fanshawe looked at the end rather tactlessly cheerful. (She had cried throughout the ceremony, just when she had worn the mauve hat and Estelle had hoped she wouldn't.)