The Squire was one of those happy and consistent people who have one real vocation in life, and follow it with no deviations. He was a figure-head. His fine features, height, and the gallant bearing he had kept until well on into late middle age, singled him out from those less ornamented by nature, and the excellent sense of his conversation impressed all those with whom he was thrown. Devoted to field sports, he was popular in the hunting-field; an excellent shot, an ideal companion. Such was the universal verdict. And, in spite of the fact that he was a figure-head, his wife had also found him an ideal companion, or very nearly so, partly because he was less exacting than persons of this profession generally are, and partly because she herself had one of those natures to whom idleness means misery. He talked and was pleasant, and she worked and was indispensable, and between them they kept things going. If sometimes her shoulders ached and she longed for a rest, she kept these things to herself, and no one but Llewellyn suspected them; for her endurance was great, as great as the loyalty which had held up the figure-head for twenty-five odd years to the gaze of an admiring world. She managed all business except the few little things that it amused him to undertake himself, and he leaned upon her, liked her better than any one he knew, and occasionally had fleeting suspicions that she was superior to most women, though other matters generally intervened in his mind and forbade him to follow out the idea.
Lady Harriet was the daughter of a well-known sporting peer, and it was her horsemanship which had first attracted him, combined with the knowledge that she had a little money. She had never possessed beauty of any sort, being a woman of short and almost stumpy figure, with strong hands and square shoulders; what had alone redeemed her from absolute ugliness were her masses of dark hair and the sympathy of expression in her eyes, which could be appealing, steadfast, humorous, or soft. Years had intensified this grace in her; it was a lasting one, and had endured while the thick hair had become silver-grey. She had always been a keen lover of outdoor life and sports, and had hunted regularly with her husband and sons, until the Squire’s straitened means had made it difficult to mount the whole family; then she had quietly given her hunting up, saying that she was getting too old for long days.
In the minds of her sons she was connected with everything they had liked best in their childhood. Their father had not been disposed to trouble himself with youngsters, so she had taken them bird’s-nesting, scrambling, fishing, and had taught them all as little boys to ride to hounds. She had not gone much into society of late years, having no daughters to take out, and not conceiving it to be her duty to form one of a row of gossiping dowagers at county balls. In her secret heart Llewellyn was the dearest to her of her four boys; he was the youngest child, and there was a likeness in disposition between them which, had they been of one sex, would have forced them apart, but which, as they were mother and son, drew them together. Besides, as his business kept him at home, he knew her far more intimately than did his brothers, and with that greater impartiality which comes when the boy grows into the man and meets his parents more on common ground.
“Do you know that the Archæological Society meets next week, and that we must ask Mr. Lewis to come over?” inquired Lady Harriet, looking out of the window upon a border of snowdrops which were just coming up.
“By Jove, yes; I had forgotten,” exclaimed Mr. Fenton. “I suppose we ought to ask the niece too.”
“I did not know he had one.”
“A very pretty one. I saw her dancing with Harry at the yeomanry ball. I forget her name; somebody told me something about her, but I can’t remember that either.”
His wife looked thoughtful. “We shall have to ask her at any rate,” she said; “she can’t be left out very well. I hope she is nice.”
“You had better write at once, my dear,” said the Squire, making for the door. “I am going off to the stables.”