[CHAPTER II.]
WHO IS MRS. WINSLADE?
Although the Vicar of St. Michael's, in the exuberance of his good nature, had allowed Philip Winslade to infer that there was no reason why Mrs. Sudlow might not be expected to look upon the young man's suit with eyes as favourable as those with which he himself was inclined to regard it, he felt far from sure in his own mind that such would really be the case. He knew that his wife was a woman of strong prejudices and narrow sympathies, who had a habit of nourishing petty resentments till they swelled out of all proportion to the original cause of offence, whether it chanced to be real or merely supposititious. For his own part, he would have gladly welcomed Phil for a son-in-law. He--the Rev. Louth--was, comparatively speaking, a poor man. There seemed little prospect of any further preferment for him; he had eight younger olive-branches to provide for, who were growing more expensive year by year; and to be able to get his eldest daughter off his hands, and married to one who he felt sure would make her a good husband, seemed to him one of those things devoutly to be wished. He was not a man of strong will, nor even one of those who contrive to mask their moral cowardice under the bluster of self-assertion. Dear to his heart were peace and quietness, more especially on the domestic hearth. As he rang the vicarage bell this evening his courage sank a little at the prospect before him. His conscience was too sensitive to allow him to shirk what he deemed to be a duty, how disagreeable soever it might be to him; but that did not render its discharge any the easier.
Dinner came as a brief respite. It was not till later, after the younger members of the family had retired for the night and husband and wife were left alone in the drawing-room, that the Vicar braced himself to the task before him.
Mrs. Sudlow was a small, slight, fair woman, with chilly blue eyes, pinched features, and a somewhat worn and acid expression; but whether the latter was due to the fact that she found the cares of a numerous family weigh heavily upon her, or whether it had its origin in those fictitious troubles which some women make a point of creating for themselves, hugging them all the more fondly in that they have no substantial existence, was a moot point, and one which, happily, no one was called upon to decide.
The Vicar laid down the Times, which he had been making a pretence of reading, hemmed and gave a tug at the bottom of his waistcoat. His wife was seated opposite him, busy with some fancy embroidery.
"My dear, I picked up young Winslade this afternoon, or, to speak more accurately, he picked me up, at Downhills station. He was on his way from London to spend a few days with his mother."
Not the slightest notice took Mrs. Sudlow. Her husband might have been addressing himself to the chimney-piece for any heed vouchsafed by her.
Again the Vicar cleared his voice.
"From what he told me, it appears that he has been over to America on some special matter for his employer, and, by a rather singular coincidence, it so happened that he crossed from New York in the same steamer that brought my sister and Fanny. By the way, I don't think that Fan, in the letter she wrote us after landing, as much as mentioned young Winslade's name."