"Well, it is not exactly a Garden of Eden," returned Cedric with a grin. "But, as David says, it has its advantages, for one can wear out one's old clothes quite comfortably. I believe there is really beautiful country two or three miles away."
"I suppose Mr. Carlyon's mother is living too?" But here Cedric shook his head.
"No, she died when David was a youngster—consumption, I believe—and two or three of the children died too. But there is one daughter, Theo they call her—for Theodora, I expect—and a precious uncomfortable piece of goods she is."
Malcolm raised his eyebrows in a questioning manner, but Cedric needed no encouragement to rattle on.
"She is a young woman with a mission—a sort of female Moody and Sankey rolled in one—and she calls herself the Miner's Friend. She is so full of good works, don't you know, that she has not time for domestic duties; and so Carlyon pere and Carlyon frere have a roughish time of it."
Malcolm's thoughts instinctively reverted to his mother. With all her work and philanthropic schemes, she was never too busy to see to her household. She might neglect her own personal comfort and overtask her willing helper Anna, but her servants did their duty, and were well fed and well managed; and they worked all the better for the knowledge that their mistress's keen eyes would detect the slightest laxity. "My mother is a good woman," he said to himself; "she is true and just in all her dealings," and he felt with a sudden pang of remorse as though he had never valued her enough.
"Is Miss Carlyon like her brother in appearance?" he asked the next minute.
"Not a bit; she would make two of David. She is a big, red-haired woman, not exactly bad-looking—if she would only set herself off. But the Carlyons have a family failing, they cling to their old clothes and eschew fashion. Hush, here comes Mother Pratt with the tea-tray. Look at her well, Herrick. She is a good imitation of the immortal Mrs. Gummidge, and bears a mortified exterior, out of compliment to the late Samuel Pratt, sexton and grave-digger and parochial Jack-of-all-trades."
The bumping sounds in the distance that Cedric had heard had drawn nearer, and the next moment a tall, angular woman in a black hat, and a suspicion of soap-suds freshly dried about her bare arms, entered the room and set down the tea-tray with a heavy sigh, as though the burden of life were too hard to bear.
Mr. Carlyon followed her with a crusty loaf and the butter, while Elizabeth brought up the rear triumphantly with a plate of raspberries and a little brown jug of cream.