“Aunt Catherine used to be beautiful,” observed Sir Harry, gravely; for then and afterwards he insisted on that form of address. He was not English enough or sufficiently stiff for Henry, he would say.
“Oh, dear, yes! she is quite lovely now,—at least Archie and I think so; and Dulce is the dearest little thing. I am ever so fond of them; if they were my own sisters I could not love them more,” continued Mattie, with a little gush; but, indeed the girls’ gentle high-bred ways had won her heart from the first.
Sir Harry’s eyes positively sparkled with delight; he had pleasant eyes which redeemed his other features, for it must be confessed he was decidedly plain.
“I must shake hands with you, Miss Drummond,” he said, stretching out a huge hand, with a diamond ring on it that greatly impressed Mattie. “We shall be good friends, I see that.” And though poor Mattie winced with pain under that cordial grasp, she hid it manfully.
“Did they tell you at Oldfield how poor they are?” she said, when this ceremony had been performed, and Sir Harry’s face looked more like a sunset than ever with that benevolent glow on it.
“Oh, yes,” he returned, indifferently; “but all that is over now.”
“You know they have to work for their living; the girls are dressmakers,” bringing out the news rather cautiously, for fear he should be shocked; a baronet must be sensitive on such points. But Sir Harry only laughed.
“Well, they are plucky girls,” he said, admiringly; “I like them for that.” And then he asked, a little anxiously, if his aunt sewed gowns too,—that was how he put it,—and seemed mightily relieved to hear that she did very little but read to the girls.
“I would not like to hear she was slaving herself at her age,” 287 he remarked, seriously. “Work will not hurt the girls: it keeps them out of mischief. But now I have come, we must put a stop to all this.” And then he got up and threw back his shoulders, as though he were adjusting them to some burden; and Mattie, as she looked up at him, thought again of the brewer’s dray.
“I was afraid when he got off his chair he would touch the ceiling,” she said, afterwards. “He quite stooped of his own accord going through the study doorway.”