"I'll do it after office hours—in my private capacity—and of course without entering it to your account."
Mr. Prentice was a jolly red-faced man of fifty, with healthy clean-shaven cheeks, and small grey whiskers of a sporting cut. Altogether the most eminent solicitor in Mallingbridge, he had clients among all the country gentlefolk of the neighbourhood; he rode to hounds still, and kept his horses at Young's stables; he stood high in the Masonic craft and could sing an excellent comic song. He was at once Mrs. Thompson's trusted legal adviser, her staunch friend, and, as he himself declared, her admiring slave.
"One more word," said Mrs. Thompson. "It is time that I gave another dinner at the Dolphin. There are two new men on the Council—and there will be more new men next November. I shall want your help to act as deputy host for me. Will you think it out—draw up a list of guests—and arrange everything?"
"It is for you to command, and for me to obey," said genial Mr. Prentice. "But, upon my word, I don't know why you should go on feasting people in this way."
"I like to stand well with the town."
"And so you do. So you would, if you never gave them another glass of champagne.... I think your mamma is far too generous."
But Miss Enid, who seemed unutterably bored, was staring out of the carriage in the other direction. She had not been listening to Mr. Prentice, and she did not hear him when he addressed her directly.
"Then good-bye. Drive on, coachman.... There," and Mrs. Thompson turned gaily to her daughter. "That's more than enough business for Thursday afternoon, isn't it, Enid?"
They drove along the London road, through the pretty village of Haggart's Cross, as far as the chalk cliffs beneath the broad downs; and then, descending again, through beech woods and fir plantations to the valley where the river Malling runs and twists beside the railway line all the way home to the town.
The world was fresh and bright, with the May wind blowing softly and the May flowers budding sweetly. Cattle in the green fields, birds in the blue sky, pinafored children chanting a lesson behind the latticed panes of their schoolhouse, primroses peeping from grassy banks, and, far and near, the white hawthorn shedding its perfume, giving its fragrant message of spring, of hope, of life—plenty of things to look at with pleasure, plenty of things to talk about, though one might often have seen them before.