"Perhaps he was a shade more civil than usual," observed Marcus, dryly, "but his manners certainly want mending. Could you not illuminate that motto, Livy, 'Manners makyth man?' and we would frame it, and give it him as a Christmas present." But Olivia could not be induced to see the joke; Mr. Gaythorne was still an old dear, and the perfume of his flowers was sweet to her.
Marcus would have wondered if he had intercepted one of the searching glances that were reading him so acutely; those deep-set, melancholy eyes could pierce like a gimlet; sometimes a vivid blue light seemed to dart from them. "When master has one of his awful looks on, I dare not face him," Phoebe would say, and Mrs. Crampton, conscious as she was of rectitude and the claim of long and faithful service, felt there were limitations to her intercourse with her master.
Once, and once only, had she ventured on a tabooed subject, and had retired from the room with her comely face quite pale with fear.
"I thought he would have struck me," she said to her confidante, the middle-aged housemaid, "or that he would have had a fit; I should have one myself if I ever tried it on again; but I never will, Rebecca, I will take my oath of that."
"Master has an awful temper when he is drove wrong," returned Rebecca, primly; "I don't wonder at Mr. Alwyn myself. I don't hold with keeping too tight a hand over a young man, it fairly throttles all the goodness out of them. He was none so bad that he would not have done better, if only he had had a word of encouragement instead of all those flouts and jibes."
"Those are exactly my sentiments, Becky," returned Mrs. Crampton, wiping her eyes with her snowy-frilled apron, "and having a boy of my own, bless him, I am a pretty fair judge. Tom was a pickle before he went to sea, but neither his poor father nor me ever cast it at him. He ran away and took the Queen's shilling, though it nigh broke our hearts. Well, he is a sergeant now, and Polly makes him a good wife, and all's well that ends well. But I must be looking after master's supper," and Mrs. Crampton bustled away to her duties.
Olivia took her flowers round to Aunt Madge as soon as her household duties were done in the morning. Mrs. Broderick, who had had a sleepless night of pain, looked more worn and languid than usual, but she brightened up at the sight of the flowers, and poked her long nose into the heart of a rose with an air of rapt enjoyment, but the next moment she frowned.
"Livy," she said, severely, "I am extremely angry! how dare you be guilty of such extravagance, even if it be my birthday! Don't I know what these exquisite flowers must have cost!" then Olivia's face fell a little.
"Oh, Aunt Madge, I had no idea it was your birthday, and I have brought you nothing, nothing at all. Do let me explain," and then Mrs. Broderick listened with much interest to Olivia's recital.
"The flowers are even sweeter than I thought them," she said, presently, and her face flushed a little. "I thought the day would be so blank, and that I should just lie here missing Fergus. He always made such a fuss on my birthdays; they were red-letter days to him, and now this friendly message has come to me. Give me my writing-case, Livy. I must scrawl a few lines to your old gentleman," and she refused to dictate the note to Olivia.