"No finer than most of us Robsons," snapped Sarah. But she remembered one Robson who had not been fine. Mary's father, Benjamin, had always been a most unsatisfactory person. Drinking and betting were bad enough, but there were other tales of servants hurriedly dismissed and governesses who would not stay. Of course it was a pity his wife had died when the girl was born; but she had been a queer, dowdy sort of creature, fond of books and no use in a house. Probably she would never have prevented the deepest disgrace of Ben's career—the mortgage that imperilled five hundred acres of land that had been farmed by a Robson since the sixteenth century.
"Who's building that house over there, Tom? she inquired.
"Oh, it's Sam Burrard. He's putting up a house so as not to have to drive out from the town to farm every day."
Sarah frowned.
"Why didn't you tell me? You never tell me anything worth hearing. It's just as well Sam is building himself a mansion in this world. From all accounts he won't get much of a one in the next."
In a quarter of an hour they would be at Anderby Wold. That was where Ben had died over ten years ago, and where John had called to see if he could do anything for Mary—eighteen-year-old Mary, left alone to cope with her father's debts. Oh, but she was clever! She knew that John was capable of managing two farms as well as one. Six month's tribute had been paid to decorum before she had married him—poor John being too guileless to understand her cleverness. And, for the hundredth time since the marriage, Sarah had to enter John's house as his wife's guest. It was hard.
The road rounded the summit of the hill and tilted towards the valley, two miles away. There from a cluster of leafless trees rose the welcoming smoke of Anderby Wold.
Well! Mary had everything now. Sarah wished her joy of it.
The thought of her husband driving placidly by her side, without a thought for her discomfiture, goaded Sarah to fury.
"Tom," she exclaimed, "I wish you'd use your handkerchief. There's a drop on the end of your nose!"