She took it from him with her country courtesy.
“You will be leaving us, my lord?”
He glanced at her through his drooping lids.
“Can I trespass forever on your hospitality?”
She went forth with the letter quickly, without another word.
It was but little after noon when there came a great clatter into the simple farmyard that was wont to echo to no louder sounds than the lumbering progress of the teamsters and their wagon, or the patient steps of Pomona’s dairy cows. A great coach with four horses and running footmen had drawn up before the farm porch. A man in dark livery, with a sleek, secret face, slipped down from the rumble, reached for a valise and disappeared round the house. The coach door opened, and the Lady Julia Majendie descended, followed by no less a person than my Lord Majendie himself, who was seldom known to leave his library, much less to accompany his daughter out driving. His presence marked a great occasion. And with them was a very fine lady, a stranger to any of the farm, a little lady with dark hair in ringlets and high plumes to a great hat, and a dress that shone with as many pale colors as a pigeon’s breast. She sniffed, and “Oh!” cried she in very high, loud tones, pressing a vinaigrette to her nose, “can my poor brother be in such a place, and yet alive?”
“Hush, madam,” said Lord Majendie, somewhat testily, for Pomona stood in the door. “I am sure we owe nought but gratitude to this young woman.”
He was a gaunt, snuffy, untidy old man, in a dilapidated wig, but his eyes were shrewd and kindly behind the large, gold-rimmed spectacles. He peered at Pomona, pale and beautiful.
Lady Julia had evidently inherited her father’s short sight, for she, too, was staring through an eyeglass. She carried it on a gold chain, and when she lifted it to one eye her small fair face took an air of indescribable impertinence.
She interrupted father and friend, coming to the front with a scarcely perceptible movement of pointed elbows: