At another time, Mr. McLeod had wonderful stories to tell of spiritual manifestations, and on his last visit he had been overflowing with indignation against society on the score of woman's rights and wrongs.
Yet, notwithstanding these peculiarities, Mrs. Atwood loved and esteemed Mr. McLeod with a sincerity that redeemed her otherwise worldly and timid character. Her husband had been left dependent on his half brother, and owed to him his education and his establishment in the world; and, when a fortune was left by some relation of their mother to be equally divided between them, Mr. McLeod refused to take any portion of it, saying that he had more than enough. These, with many other instances of his generosity and affection which Mrs. Atwood had received since her widowhood, made her forget his eccentricities, and listen with forbearance to his impetuous outbursts of zeal or indignation.
There was another person in Westbridge who shared Mrs. Atwood's affectionate gratitude to Mr. McLeod, and from similar causes; and this was Professor Mainwaring. He was the professor of ancient languages in the college at Westbridge, and the society of the place, as well as the members of the college, thought it a high honor to be able to number such a man as one of themselves. He combined, in a manner that is seldom seen, the high-bred gentleman with the accomplished scholar and the strict and severe theologian, for he was a clergyman as well as a professor; and when to this it is added that he was still unmarried, it will hardly be wondered at if he were an object of general attention, carefully restrained though within its proper limits.
He also had been indebted in early life to Mr. McLeod; for, although brought up in the habits, and with the expectation of being a rich man, he found himself in the second year of his college life left, by the sudden death of his father, Judge Mainwaring, entirely destitute. With no friends who were able or willing to assist him, George Mainwaring was about to give up reluctantly all hopes of completing the studies in which he had so far been eminently successful, and had already begun to look about for some means of obtaining a present support, when Mr. McLeod heard of his position, and, with the prompt and delicate generosity peculiar to him, came forward with offers of assistance. He claimed a right, as an old friend of George Mainwaring's father, to interest himself in the young student's welfare; and, with some hesitation, such as every independent mind naturally feels, Mr. Mainwaring accepted the offered aid.
The pecuniary obligation had long since been repaid, but the feeling of gratitude to the one who had enabled him to pursue the career best fitted to the bent of his mind remained in full force; and, from the influence of this feeling, he had been induced to make an offer to Mr. McLeod, which was the immediate occasion of Miss McLeod's visit to Westbridge.
Mr. McLeod had been for some years devoting himself spasmodically to the study of Revelations. He fancied that he had discovered the clue to the meaning of many of the most mysterious parts of this book; but, unfortunately, there were many little discrepancies between his ideas and those apparently conveyed by the words of this part of Holy Writ. These he attributed to a faulty translation, and had himself begun one that was to be free from such blemishes; but, finding that his knowledge of the language was insufficient, or that his patience was soon exhausted, he determined that his daughter Janet should qualify herself to perform this office for him.
She would have undertaken to learn Chinese, if her father had expressed a wish to that effect, and therefore made no opposition to studying Greek, nor to passing the winter in Westbridge with her aunt, that she might avail herself of the proposal Mr. Mainwaring had made to her father, that he should be her instructor. Miss McLeod had never been in Westbridge, and Mr. Mainwaring had never happened to meet her. He knew that she was a young lady of eighteen, and that, since her mother's death, some three years before, she had devoted herself entirely to making her father's home as comfortable and happy as possible. Her filial affection had prepossessed him very much in her favor, and he looked forward to aiding her in her studies with an unusual degree of pleasure. Jane Atwood, too, was delighted at the prospect of renewing an acquaintance that had languished since her childhood.
Mr. McLeod was prevented, by some of his numerous engagements, from accompanying his daughter to Westbridge, as he had intended; and, placing her under the care of an acquaintance who was on his way to the city of New York, he telegraphed to Professor Mainwaring a request that he would meet Miss McLeod at the Westbridge depot.
The cars arrived about twilight, and, punctually at the appointed time, Mr. Mainwaring and Miss Atwood stood on the platform waiting for the stopping of the train. The young lady looked in vain among the group that sprang hurriedly out of the cars to find one that she could recognize as her cousin. Mr. Mainwaring scrutinized the crowd with a like purpose, but as fruitlessly. Their attention was arrested at the same moment by the same object—the singular attire of a person leaning on the arm of an old gentleman, who was looking around him evidently greatly hurried and perplexed. Mr. Mainwaring gave but one glance, and then looked away, apparently considering the individual hardly a proper subject of curiosity; but Jane Atwood, less scrupulous, stood gazing so absorbed in what she saw that she entirely forgot her cousin.
The person who thus attracted her notice was a small and youthful woman, dressed in a sort of sack or paletot of black cloth, belted around her waist and falling a little below the knee, and loose trowsers of the same material gathered into a band around the ankle, leaving exposed a small foot encased in thick-soled, but neatly-fitting gaiter boots. A linen collar tied around the throat with a broad black ribbon, and a straw bonnet and veil, completed the attire.