And his sister loved him best. She looked up to him also, as something great. She never contradicted him, except at whist, a game in which they both rejoiced. In all other matters, when she had quoted the opinion of Cornelius, she considered the question at issue decided. A small garden was attached to the cottage, and Clotilda piqued herself on her pansies and carnations, but never grudged a flower for her brother's button-hole. Sometimes, but very rarely, her sisterly care was tried by the effect of a social party upon his uprightness, on which occasions Cornelius was apt to become sentimental about a certain Mabel whom he said he ought to have married, but whom his friends believed to be a mere phantom of his imagination. They never could learn her sirname.
Such were the worthy couple with whom the orphans of Trevethlan were now to be domesticated. When Randolph returned with the luggage, he found dinner ready for himself and Helen; and after the repast, he inquired his way to Mr. Winter's—the Elms—and left a message there, expressing his thanks, and saying how comfortably his sister and he were settled. Later in the evening a note invited them to dinner at the lawyer's the following day, which engagement they accepted with pleasure. And then, till bed-time, they were busied in arranging their goods and chattels. Mr. Peach, with thoughtful politeness, deferred an introduction till the morning.
When it came, Cornelius made his bow, and a very awkward one it was, to his new lodgers.
"Good morrow, Mr. Morton," he said, looking nowhere straight, but at Helen sideways; "good morning, Miss Morton. 'Pack clouds away, and welcome day,' I trust you have rested well. Some never can sleep in a strange bed. Yours I hope will not have that fault long."
Randolph thanked him: they had slept very well.
"Ah, Miss Morton," continued the landlord, "I would you had come earlier in the year. The fall is a sad season. Nothing in the garden but Michaelmas daisies, those miserable old bachelors of flowers; and a few chrysanthemums, the showy old maids. You will never be a chrysanthemum, Miss Morton."
The ponderous machine which called at the cottage every morning to convey Mr. Peach to the city, was now heard lumbering along the lane, and the jocund little man took his departure.
So far Randolph and Helen had scarcely found time to breathe, much less to think; but when they strolled out upon the heath in the course of the day, reflections came crowding upon their minds. The foundation of the aërial castle was fairly laid: did it promise as well, as when viewed from Merlin's Cave? Not quite perhaps. Something grated on their feelings; it might be they missed the sound of the sea; it might be the flurry through which they had passed; it might be such a trifle as the oddities of their host and hostess. The total disruption of all their old habits was more violent than they had expected. They experienced a vague uneasiness. They almost began to regret the calm of Trevethlan Castle. And when they gazed down upon the vast city, veiled by the clouds that roll continually from its myriad hearths, through which the dome of St. Paul's loomed in exaggerated dimensions, it must be confessed that their vision of the future wore a doubtful and variable hue. Their looks were downcast; gravity took the place of animation in their faces; and it was with some anxiety that they set forth on their way to the Elms.
This feeling was soon charmed away by the perfect quiet of their reception. Mr. Winter at Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Winter at Hampstead, were very different men: there, he considered the moments as precious for work; here, they were only precious for enjoyment: there, he governed them; here, he yielded to them. A shade of impatience might be detected in his manner at chambers; nothing ruffled him at home. And Mrs. Winter, accustomed as she had always been to see only the sunny side of things, ministered admirably to the happiness of all around her, and particularly of her husband. They and their eldest daughter Emily, a blue-eyed girl with light hair, were in the drawing-room, when Randolph and Helen arrived. Before dinner was announced, the orphans had forgotten all their solicitude.
And except that they talked with rather too much preciseness, too much like a book as people say, they acquitted themselves very well in the gentle stream of conversation which their host kept tranquilly flowing. And by the time that Mrs. Winter rose to retire, they felt that they had been introduced to a new pleasure, that of agreeable society.