“How wonderfully he has improved, nurse—Miss Fenton, I mean. My sister told me he was a lovely boy, and so he is. Why, Rolf will look quite plain beside him. What nicely-behaved children they seem. Poor Rolf is such a plague to us all.”
“Don’t you love Rolf, auntie?” asked Joyce, fixing her dark eyes on Miss Cheriton’s face.
The young aunt looked rather perplexed at this question.
“When Rolf is good I love him, but not when he teases, fidgets, or frightens my canaries; I do not love him a bit then. I am always longing to box his ears, only his mother would be so angry with me. Father, dear, do make Methuselah go a little slower, Mr. Hawtry is trying to overtake us.”
“Holloa, Roger,” exclaimed the squire, in his hearty voice, “you did not think to pass Methuselah, did you, on that hack of yours?” And the next moment a gentleman, well mounted on a dark bay mare, rode up, and entered into conversation with Miss Cheriton. He threw a searching glance round the carriage as he lifted his hat, and then laid his hand on the carriage door.
“Good afternoon, squire; Methuselah seems a trifle fresh. How is it you are not driving, as usual, Miss Cheriton? Better employed, I suppose,” with a look at Reggie. “So these are Alick Morton’s children, are they? The little girl looks delicate. You must bring them out to my place; Mrs. Cornish will give them plenty of new milk. By the by, isn’t that Hannah Sowerby?” And as she dimpled and looked pleased, “Why, I was over at Wheeler’s Farm this morning, and your sister Molly was talking about you. I wanted Matthew to come up to the Red Farm for a job—he is a handy fellow, that brother of yours—so, as I was waiting, I had a chat with Molly.”
I looked across at Hannah and saw how this kindly mention of her home pleased her. It was good-natured of Mr. Hawtry to single her out, and this little act of Christian charity prepossessed me in his favour. He was not very young—a little over thirty, I should have judged—and had a strong sensible face, “not a mask without any meaning to it,” as Aunt Agatha sometimes said, but a face that seemed to reveal a sensible, downright character.
I saw Mr. Hawtry look in my direction once a little doubtfully. I daresay, being an old friend of the family, he thought it rather odd that Miss Cheriton did not introduce him to me, but Joyce soon enlightened him.
“Oh, nurse! do look at those pretty flowers,” she called out, pulling my gown to enforce my attention.
“Yes, I see them, dear,” I answered, quietly, and then Reggie became restless and struggled to get to me, so I took him in my arms, and at that moment the carriage turned in at some lodge gates.