The Mitchesons were strong in family affection, never disowning their kindred, but readily responding to all reasonable claims for help and sympathy one amongst another.
There were no loose links in their family chain; through evil report and good report, they clung together. They helped the weak, cheered the troubled, and, if misfortune pursued one of their number, the prosperous held out kind hands—not empty hands—and set him on his legs again.
Even if there were a black sheep amongst them, love flung a mantle over his faults, so that the world at large should not scoff at the sable fleece, which, maybe, grew whiter in time, as grey hairs replace black ones, with advancing years and better judgment.
Mark was a problem to Dolly which she could not solve.
She had heard people say that his father was rich; yet, she was sure he worked in the fields, and wore a coat on week days, like the cottagers round Claybury. There was no servant—Mark had accidentally told so much—and therefore his mother must sweep, scrub, and make fires, and cook, and wash up dishes; no wonder she did not want company. And they did not care for aunts and uncles and cousins! It must be all very horrid. But Mark was nice, and so Dolly magnanimously resolved that she would not "bother"—her favourite, though inelegant, expression—but would be as good as ever she could to the lonely boy. So she sent her problem to the winds, and said to Mark—
"I have seven brothers—three older, four younger than I am. One more does not make much difference; so I will have you to go amongst the big lot, and make it into four. Then I shall be exactly in the middle, and you will have eight of us belonging to you. There!"
And Dolly, having settled this matter to her own satisfaction, gave herself no further anxiety on the subject, but managed to give Mark something to talk about by initiating him into the mysteries of tennis, and laughing and making him laugh at his awkwardness.
[CHAPTER III.]
MR. WALTHEW IS FAR FROM EASY IN HIS MIND.
DANIEL WALTHEW'S mind was much exercised by the fact that his son had been invited to Mr. Mitcheson's, and treated like one of his own boys, for the solicitor was a very great man in his eyes. He was not only a lawyer, but the lawyer to whom noblemen, the first in the county, went for advice. He had property, too, which made him independent of his profession, and Mrs. Mitcheson had not come to him empty-handed. He entertained his aristocratic clients, and was entertained by them, and, as Mr. Walthew put it, "He thinks no more of a Member of Parliament coming to dinner, than I should of asking my next-door neighbour to a cup of tea."