Mrs. Yorke mused over her embroidery, set a golden stitch in a violet, drew it too tightly, and had to loosen it.
"Oh!" Edith exclaimed, her memory catching on that thread. "That makes me recollect that I knit a tight strip into the heel of Mr. Rowan's stocking, and I can see just how it looked. But I didn't know it then."
There was a sound of wheels, and Mrs. Yorke looked up to see a carriage drawn by a pair of greys coming up the avenue. Major Cleaveland had lost no time in calling on his neighbors.
Mr. Yorke went down to meet his visitor, the road being too penitential for travel, and the two walked up together. They had known each other by sight in Boston, where the major spent his winters, but had no farther acquaintance. Now they met cordially, and stood a while talking in the portico before going in to see the ladies. Major Cleaveland was fresh-faced, pleasant-looking, and rather pompous in manner. A deep crape on his hat proclaimed him a widower. Indeed, Mrs. Cleaveland had not long survived young Mrs. Yorke, and the two had, ere this, let us hope, amicably settled the question of precedence.
The visit was an agreeable one to all, though it was evident that the visitor felt more at ease with the ladies than with his host. He was slightly disconcerted by Mr. York's piercing eyes, aquiline nose, and emphatic mode of speech, and on the whole found him rather too dominant in manner. It appeared that there were to be two lords in Seaton instead of one.
We doubt if the most amiable of Bengal lions would be altogether pleased at seeing his proper jungle invaded by even the politest of Nubian lions; and we may be pretty sure that the lioness would hear in private more than one remark detrimental to the dignity of that odious black monster with his desert manners. And in return, it is not unlikely that the African desert-king might sneer at his tawny brother as rather an effeminate creature. It is not the lionesses alone who have rivalries. Certain it is that, when Major Cleaveland had gone, and the ladies chose to praise him very highly, Melicent pronouncing him to be a superior person, Mr. Yorke saw fit to greet the remark with one of his most disagreeable smiles.
"Don't you think so, papa?" asks Melicent.
"He has intellectual tastes, but no intellectual power," answered "papa" most decidedly. "He has glimmerings."
But for all that, the call was a pleasant one, the gentleman lingering half an hour, and then going with reluctance. The presence of Edith had caused him a momentary embarrassment. He was not sure that it would be delicate to remember having ever seen her before, and yet her smiling eyes seemed to expect a recognition. But Mrs. Yorke brought her forward immediately. "Edith tells me you are an acquaintance," she said, "and that you have been very kind to her."
Before going, Major Cleaveland placed his pews in the meeting-house at their disposal, and offered to send a carriage for them the next morning. "I have two of the best pews in Dr. Martin's church," he said, "and since my boys went away to school, there has been no one but myself to occupy them. There is room in each for six persons; and I sit in one, and put my hat in the other. Of course, we look like two oases in a red velvet desert. Do come, ladies, and make a garden of the place."