“It is meant to fit me, Mrs. Hales; and it fits me to a nicety. It could not fit better; and it will be too easy, when we have had a few hard runs. Where are my daughters? They know a good fit; and they know how to put a thing on my shoulders. Carry, Madge, and Cecil, come to the rescue of your father. Your father is baited, worse than any badger. Come all of you; don’t stop a minute, or get perverted by your mother. Now, in simple truth, what do you say to this, my dears? Each speak her own opinion.”
“It suits you most beautifully, papa.”
“Papa, I think that I never saw you look a quarter so well before.”
“My dear father, if there are any ladies, mamma will have reason to be jealous. But I fear that I see the back-seam starting.”
“You clever little Cecil, I am afraid that it is. I feel a relief in my—ahem!—I mean an uncomfortable looseness in the chest. I told the fellow forty-eight inches at least. He has scamped the cloth, the London rascal! However, we can spare it from round the waist, as soon as our poor Cobble can see to it. But for to-day—ah yes, well thought of! My darling, go and get some of your green purse-silk. You can herring-bone it so as to last for the day at least. Your mother will show you how to do it. Madge, tell Bonny to run and tell Robert not to bring the mare yet for a quarter of an hour. Now, ladies, I am at your mercy.”
“Now, papa dear,” asked Cecil, as she stitched away at the seam of her father’s burly back; “if poor Cousin Hilary should get up and want to go out, what are we to do?”
“How can you even put such a question? Even on our opening day, I would not dream of leaving the house, if I thought that you could be so stupid as to let that poor boy out. I would not have him seen in the parish, and I would not have his own people see him, even for the brush of the Fox-coombe fox, who is older than the hills, they say, and no hound dare go near him. One of you must be always handy; and if he gets restless, turn the key on him. Nothing can be simpler.”
With his bottle-green coat, now warranted to last (unless he over-buttoned it), the Rector kissed his dear wife and daughters; and then universal good wishes, applauses, and kissings of hand, set him forth on his way, with a bright smile spread upon his healthy face.
“Now mind, we are left in charge,” said Madge. “You are his doctor, of course, mamma; but we are to be his constables. I hope to goodness that he will eat by-and-by. It makes me so miserable to see him. And the trouble we have had to keep the servants from knowing who he is, mamma!”