WHARTON HALL FARM
'A dappled sky, a world of meadows,
Circling above us the black rooks fly
Forward, backward; lo, their dark shadow
Flits on the blossoming tapestry.
Bare grassy slopes, where kids are tethered
Round valleys like nests all ferny-lined,
Round hills, with fluttering tree-tops feathered,
Swell high in their freckled robes behind.'
Jean Ingelow.
Mr. Lambert was soon made acquainted with his son's disappointment; but
his sympathy was somewhat chilled by Richard's composed tranquillity of
bearing. Perhaps it might be a little forced, but the young man
certainly bore himself as though he had sustained no special defeat; the
concentrated gravity of purpose which had scared Ethel was still
apparent.
'You need not be so anxious about me, father,' he said, with almost a
smile, in return to Mr. Lambert's look of questioning sadness. 'I have
climbed too high and have had a fall, that is all. I must bear what
other and better men have borne before me.'
'My brave boy; but, Cardie, is there no hope of relenting; none?'
'She would not have me, that is all I can tell you,' returned Richard,
in the same quiet voice. 'You must not take this too much to heart; it
is my fate to love her, and to go on loving her; if she refused me a
dozen times, it would be the same with me, father.'
Mr. Lambert shook his head; he was greatly troubled; for the moment his
heart was a little sore against this girl, who was the destroyer of his
son's peace.
'You may hide it from me, but you will eat out your heart with sadness
and longing,' he said, with something of a groan. Richard was very dear
to him, though he was not Benjamin. He was more like Joseph, he thought,
a little quaintly, as he looked up at the noble young face. 'Yes,
Joseph, the ruler among his brethren. Ah, Cardie, it is not to be, I
suppose; and now you will eat out your heart and youth with the longing
after this girl.'
'Do not think so meanly of me,' returned the young man with a flush.
'You loved my mother for three years before you married her, and I only
pleaded my cause yesterday. Do you think I should be worthy of loving
the noblest, yes, the noblest of women,' he continued, his gray eyes
lighting up with enthusiasm, 'if I were so weakly to succumb to this
disappointment. _Laborare est orare_--that shall be my motto, father. We
must leave results in higher hands.'
'God bless and comfort you, my son,' returned Mr. Lambert, with some
emotion. He looked at Richard with a sort of tender reverence; would
that all disappointed lovers could bear themselves as generously as his
brave boy, he thought; and then they sat for a few minutes in silence.
'You do not mind my going away for a little while? I think Roy would be
glad to have me?' asked Richard presently.
'No, Cardie; but we shall be sorry to lose you.'
'If I were only thinking of myself, I would remain; but it will be
better for her,' he continued, hesitating; 'she could not come here, at
least, not yet; but if I were away it would make no difference. I want
you all to be kinder than ever to her, father,' and now his voice shook
a little for the first time. 'You do not know how utterly lonely and
miserable she is,' and the promise given, Richard quietly turned the
conversation into other channels.
But he was less reticent with Mildred, and to her he avowed that his
pain was very great.
'I can bear to live without her; at least I could be patient for years,
but I cannot bear leaving her to her father's sorry protection. If my
love could only shield her in her trouble, I think I could be content,'
and Mildred understood him.
'We will all be so good to her for your sake,' she returned, with a nice
womanly tact, not wearying him with effusion of sympathy, but giving him
just the comforting assurance he needed. Richard's fortitude and
calmness had deceived his father, but Mildred knew something of the
silence of exceeding pain.
'Thank you,' he said in a low voice; and Mildred knew she had said the
right thing.
But as he was bidding them good-bye two days afterwards, he beckoned her
apart from the others.
'Aunt Milly, I trust her to you,' he said, hurriedly; 'remember all my
comfort lies in your goodness to her.'
'Yes, Richard, I know; as far as I can, I will be her friend. You shall
hear everything from me,' and so she sent him away half-comforted.
Half--comforted, though his heart ached with its mighty burden of love;
and though he would have given half his strong young years to hear her
say, 'I love you, Richard.' Could older men love better, nay, half as
well as he did, with such self-sacrificing purity and faith?
Yes, his pain was great, for delay and uncertainty are bitter to the
young, and they would fain cleave with impatient hand the veiled mystery
of life; but nevertheless his heart was strong within him, for though he
could not speak of his hope, for fear that others might call it
visionary, yet it stirred to the very foundation of his soul; for so
surely as he suffered now, he knew that one day he should call Ethel
Trelawny his wife.
When Richard was gone, and the household unobservant and occupied in its
own business, Mildred quietly fetched her shady hat, and went through
the field paths, bordered by tall grasses and great shining ox-eyed
daises, which led to the shrubberies of Kirkleatham.
The great house was blazing in the sunshine; Ethel's doves were cooing
from the tower; through the trees Mildred could see the glimmer of a
white gown; the basket-work chair was in its old place, under her
favourite acacia tree; the hills looked blue and misty in the distance.
Ethel turned very pale when she saw her friend, and there was visible
constraint in her manner.
'I did not expect you; you should not have come out in all this heat,
Mildred.'
'I knew you would scold me; but I have not seen you for nearly a week,
so I came through the tropics to look after you,' returned Mildred,
playfully. 'You are under my care now. Richard begged me to be good to
you,' she continued, more seriously.
A painful flush crossed Ethel's face; her eyelids dropped.
'You must not let this come between us, Ethel; it will make him more
unhappy than he is, and I fear,' speaking still more gravely, 'that
though he says so little about himself, that he must be very unhappy.'
Ethel tried ineffectually to control her emotion.
'I could not help it. You have no right to blame me, Mildred,' she said
in a low voice.
'No, you could not help it! Who blames you, dear?--not I, nor Richard.
It was not your fault, my poor Ethel, that you could not love your old
playmate. It is your misfortune and his, that is all.'
'I know how good he is,' returned Ethel, with downcast eyes. Yes, it was
her misfortune, she knew; was he not brave and noble, her knight, _sans
peur_ and _sans reproche_, her lion-hearted Richard? Could any man be
more worthy of a woman's love?--and yet she had said him 'nay.' 'I know
he is good, too good,' she said, with a little spasm of fury against her
own hardness of heart, 'and I was a churl to refuse his love.'
'Hush; how could you help it? we cannot control these things, we women,'
returned Mildred, still anxious to soothe. She looked at the pale girl
before her with a feeling of tender awe, not unmixed with envy, that she
should have inspired such passionate devotion, and yet remained
untouched by it. This was a puzzle to gentle Mildred. 'You must try to
put it all out of your mind, and come to us again,' she finished, with
an unconscious sigh. 'Richard wished it; that is why he has gone away.'
'Has he gone away?' asked Ethel with a startled glance, and Mildred's
brief resentment vanished when she saw how heavy the once brilliant eyes
looked. Richard would have been grieved as well as comforted if he had
known how many tears Ethel's hardness of heart had caused her. She had
been thinking very tenderly of him until Mildred came between her and
the sunshine; she was sorry and yet relieved to hear he was gone; the
pain of meeting him again would be so great, she thought.
'It was wise of him to go, was it not?' returned Mildred. 'It was just
like his kind consideration. Oh, you do not know Richard.'
'No, I do not know him,' replied Ethel, humbly. 'When he came and spoke
to me, I would not believe it was he, himself; it seemed another
Richard, so different. Oh, Mildred, tell me that you do not hate me for
being so hard, not as I hate myself.'
'No, no, my poor child,' returned Mildred fondly. Ethel had thrown
herself on the grass beside her friend, and was looking up in her face
with great pathetic eyes. With her white gown and pale cheeks she looked
very young and fair. Mildred was thankful Richard could not see her.
'No, whatever happens, we shall always be the same to each other. I
shall only love you a little more because Richard loves you.'
There was not much talk after that. Ethel's shyness was not easily to be
overcome. The sweet dreamy look had come back to her eyes. Mildred had
forgiven her; she would not let this pain come between them; she might
still be with her friends at the vicarage; and as she thought of this
she blessed Richard in her heart for his generosity.
But Mildred went back a little sadly down the croft, and through the
path with the great white daisies. The inequality of things oppressed
her; the surface of their little world seemed troubled and disturbed as
though with some impending changes. They were girls and boys no longer,
but men and women, with full-grown capacities for joy and sorrow, with
youthful desires stretching hither and thither.
'Most men work out their lot in life. After all, Cardie may get his
heart's desire; it is only women who must wait till their fate comes to
them, sometimes with empty hands,' thought Mildred, a little
rebelliously, looking over the long level of sunshine that lay before
her; and then she shook off the thought as though it stung her, and
hummed a little tune as she filled her basket with roses. 'Roses and
sunshine; a golden paradise hiding somewhere behind the low blue hills;
the earth, radiant under the Divine glittering smile; a fragrant wind
sweeping over the sea of grass, till it rippled with green light; "and
God saw that it was good," this beautiful earth that He had made, yes,
it is good; it is only we who cloud and mar its brightness with our
repinings,' thought Mildred, preaching to herself softly, as she laid
the white buds among her ferns. 'A jarring note, a missing chord, and we
are out of harmony with it all; and though the sun shines, the midges
trouble us.'
It was arranged that on the next day Mr. Marsden was to escort Mildred
and her nieces to Wharton Hall, that the young curate might have an
opportunity of witnessing a Westmorland clipping.
It was an intensely hot afternoon, but neither Polly nor Chriss were
willing to give up the expedition. So as Mildred was too good-natured to
plead a headache as an excuse, and as Olive was always ready to enact
the part of a martyr on an emergency, neither of them owned how greatly
they dreaded the hot, shadeless roads.
'It is a long lane that has no turning,' gasped Hugh, as they reached
the little gate that bounded the Wharton Hall property. 'It is a mercy
we have escaped sunstroke.'
'Providence is kinder than you deserve, you see,' observed a quiet voice
behind him.
And there was Dr. Heriot leading his horse over the turf.
'Miss Lambert, have you taken leave of your usual good sense, or have
you forgotten to consult your thermometer?'
'I was unwilling to disappoint the girls, that was all,' returned
Mildred; 'they were so anxious that Mr. Marsden should be initiated into
the mysteries of sheep-clipping. Mrs. Colby has promised us some tea,
and we shall have a long rest, and return in the cool of the evening.'
'I think I shall get an invitation for tea too. My mare has lamed
herself, and I wanted Michael Colby's head man to see her; he is a handy
fellow. I was here yesterday on business; they were clipping then.'
'Mr. Marsden ought to have been here two years ago,' interposed Polly
eagerly. 'Mr. Colby got up a regular old-fashioned clipping for Aunt
Milly. Oh, it was such fun.'
'What! are there fashions in sheep-shearing?' asked Hugh, in an amused
tone. They were still standing by the little gate, under the shade of
some trees; before them were the farm-buildings and outhouses; and the
great ivied gateway, which led to the courtyard and house. Under the
gray walls were some small Scotch oxen; a peacock trailed its feathers
lazily in the dust. The air was resonant with the bleating of sheep and
lambs; the girls in their white dresses and broad-brimmed hats made a
pretty picture under the old elms. Mildred looked like a soft gray
shadow behind them.
'There are clippings and clippings,' returned Dr. Heriot, sententiously,
in answer to Hugh's half-amused and half-contemptuous question. 'This is
a very ordinary affair compared with that to which Polly refers.'
'How so?' asked Hugh, curiously.
'Owners of large stocks, I have been told, often have their sheep
clipped in sections, employ a certain number of men from day to day, and
provide a certain number of sheep, each clipper turning off seven or
eight sheep an hour.'
'Well, and the old-fashioned clipping?'
'Oh, that was another affair, and involved feasting and revelry. The
owner of a farm like this, for example, sets apart a special day, and
bids his friends and neighbours for miles round to assist him in the
work. It is generally considered that a man should clip threescore and
ten sheep in a day, a good clipper fourscore.'
'I thought the sheep-washing last month a very amusing sight.'
'Ah, Sowerby tells me that sheep improve more between washing and
clipping than at any other period of equal length. Have you ever seen
Best's _Farming Book_, two hundred years old? If you can master the old
spelling, it is very curious to read. It says there "that a man should
always forbear clipping his sheep till such time as he find their wool
indifferently well risen from the skin; and that for divers reasons."'
'Give us the reasons,' laughed Hugh. 'I believe if I were not in holy
orders I should prefer farming to any other calling.' And Dr. Heriot
drew out a thick notebook.
'I was struck with the quaintness, and copied the extract out verbatim.
This is what old Best says:--
'"I. When the wool is well risen from the skin the fleece is as
it were walked together on the top, and underneath it is but
lightly fastened to the undergrowth; and when a fleece is thus
it is called a mattrice coat.
'"II. When wool is thus risen there is no waste, for it comes
wholly off without any bits or locks.
'"III. Fleeces, when they are thus, are far more easy to wind
up, and also more easy for the clippers, for a man may almost
pull them off without any clipping at all.
'"IV. Sheep that have their wool thus risen have, without
question, a good undergrowth, whereby they will be better able
to endure a storm than those that have all taken away to the
very skin."
'You will notice, Marsden, as I did when I first came here, that the
sheep are not so clearly shorn as in the south. They have a rough,
almost untidy look; but perhaps the keener climate necessitates it. An
old proverb says:--
"The man that is about to clip his sheepe
Must pray for two faire dayes and one faire weeke."'
'That needs translation, Dr. Heriot. Chriss looks puzzled.'
'I must annotate Best, then. And here Michael Sowerby is my informant.
Don't you see, farmers like a fine day beforehand, that the wool may be
dry--the day he clips, and the ensuing week--that the sheep may be
hardened, and their wool somewhat grown before a storm comes.'
'They shear earlier in the south,' observed Hugh. He was curiously
interested in the whole thing.
'According to Best it used to be here in the middle of June, but it is
rarely earlier than the end of June or beginning of July. There is an
old saying, and a very quaint one, that you should not clip your sheep
till you see the "grasshopper sweat," and it depends on the nature of
the season--whether early or late--when this phenomenon appears in the
pastures.'
'I see no sort of information comes amiss to Dr. Heriot,' was Hugh's
admiring aside to Olive.
Olive smiled, and nodded. The conversation had not particularly
interested her, but she liked this idle lingering in the shade; the
ivied walls and gateway, and the small blue-black cattle, with the
peacock strutting in the sun, made up a pretty picture. She followed
almost reluctantly, when Dr. Heriot stretched himself, and called to his
mare, who was feeding beside them, and then led the way to the
sheep-pens. Here there was blazing sunshine again, hoarse voices and
laughing, and the incessant bleating of sheep, and all the bustle
attendant on a clipping.
Mr. Colby came forward to meet them, with warm welcome. He was a tall,
erect man, with a pleasant, weatherbeaten face, and a voice with the
regular Westmorland accent. Hugh, as the newcomer, was treated with
marked attention, and regret was at once manifested that he should only
witness such a very poor affair.
But Hugh Marsden, who had been bred in towns, thought it a very novel
and amusing sight. There were ten or twelve clippers at work, each
having his stool or creel, his pair of shears, and a small cord to bind
the feet of the victims.
The patient creatures lay helplessly under the hands that were so
skilfully denuding them of their fleece. Sometimes there was a
struggling mass of wool, but in most instances there was no resistance,
and it was impossible to help admiring the skill and rapidity of some of
the clippers.
The flock was penned close at hand; boys caught them when wanted, and
brought them to the clippers, received them when shorn, and took them to
the markers, who also applied the tar to the wounded.
In the distance the lambs were being dipped, and filled the air with
their distressful bleatings, refusing to recognise in the shorn,
miserable creatures that advanced to meet them the comfortable fleecy
parents they had left an hour ago.
Olive watched the heartrending spectacle till her heart grew pitiful.
The poor sheep themselves were baffled by the noxious sulphur with which
the fleece of the lambs were dripping. In the pasture there was
confusion, a mass of white shivering bodies, now and then ecstasies,
recognition, content. To her the whole thing was a living poem--the
innocent faces, the unrest, the plaintive misery, were intact with
higher meanings.
'This miserable little lamb, dirty and woebegone, cannot find its
mother,' she thought to herself. 'It is even braving the terrors of the
crowded yard to find her; even with these dumb, unreasoning creatures,
love casteth out fear.'
'Mr. Colby has been telling us such a curious thing,' said Hugh, coming
to her side, and speaking with his usual loud-voiced animation. 'He says
that in the good old times the Fell clergy always attended these
clippings, and acted the part of "doctor;" I mean applied the tar to the
wounded sheep.'
'Colby has rather a racy anecdote on that subject,' observed Dr. Heriot,
overhearing him. 'Let's have it, Michael, while your wife's tea is
brewing. By the bye, I have not tasted your "clipping ale" yet.'
'All right, doctor, it is to the fore. If the story you mean concerns
the election of a minister, I think I remember it.'
'Of course you do; two of the electors were discussing the merits of the
rival candidates, one of whom had preached his trial sermon that day.'
Michael Colby rubbed his head thoughtfully.
'Ay, ay; now I mind.'
'"Ay," says one, "a varra good sarmon, John; I think he'll du."'
'"Du," says John; "ay, fer a Sunday priest, I'll grant ye, he's aw weel
enugh; byt fer clippens en kirsnens toder 'ill bang him aw't nowt."'
Mildred was no longer able to conceal that her head ached severely, and,
at a whispered request from Polly, Dr. Heriot led the way to the
farmhouse.
Strangers, seeing Wharton Hall for the first time, are always struck by
the beauty of the old gateway, mantled in ivy, through which is the trim
flower-bordered inclosure, with its comfortable dwelling-house and low,
long dairy, and its picturesque remnant of ruins, the whole forming
three sides of a quadrangle.
Wharton Hall itself was built by Thomas Lord Wharton about the middle of
the sixteenth century, and is a good specimen of a house of the period.
Part of it is now in ruins, a portion of it occupied as a farmhouse.
Mrs. Colby, a trim, natty-looking little body, was bustling about the
great kitchen with her maids. Tea was not quite ready, and there was a
short interval of waiting, in a long, narrow room upstairs, with a great
window, looking over the dairy and garden, and the beautiful old
gateway.
'I call this my ideal of a farmhouse!' cried Hugh enthusiastically, as
they went down the old crazy staircase, having peeped into a great empty
room, which Polly whispered would make a glorious ballroom.
The sunshine was streaming into the great kitchen through the narrow
windows. July as it was, a bright fire burnt in the huge fireplace; the
little round table literally groaned under the dainties with which it
was spread; steel forks and delicate old silver spoons lay side by side,
the great clock ticked, the red-armed maids went clattering through the
flagged passages and dairies, a brood of little yellow chickens clucked
and pecked outside in the dust.
'What a picture it all is,' said Olive; and Dr. Heriot laughed. The
white dresses and the girls' fresh faces made up the principal part of
the picture to him. The grand old kitchen, the sunshine, and the gateway
outside were only the background, the accessories of the whole.
Polly wore a breast-knot of pale pinky roses; she had laid aside her
broad-brimmed hat; as she moved hither and thither in her trailing
dress, with her short, almost boyishly-cropped hair, she looked so
graceful and piquante that Dr. Heriot's eyes followed her everywhere
with unconscious pleasure.
Polly was more than eighteen now, but her hair had never grown
properly--it was still tucked behind the pretty little ears, and the
smooth glossy head still felt like the down of an unfledged bird; 'there
was something uncommon about Polly Ellison's style,' as people said, and
as Mildred sometimes observed to Dr. Heriot--'Polly is certainly growing
very pretty.'
He thought so now as he watched the delicate, high-bred face, the cheeks
as softly tinted as the roses she wore. Polly's gentle fun always made
her the life of the party; she was busily putting in the sugar with the
old-fashioned tongs--she carried the cups to Dr. Heriot and Hugh with
saucy little speeches.
How well Mildred remembered that evening afterwards. Dr. Heriot had
placed her in the old rocking-chair beside the open window, and had
thrown himself down on the settle beside her. Chriss, who was a regular
salamander, had betaken herself to the farmer's great elbow-chair; the
other girls and Hugh had gathered round the little table; the sunshine
fell full on Hugh's beaming face and Olive's thoughtful profile; how
peaceful and bright it all was, she thought, in spite of her aching
head; the girlish laughter pealed through the room, the sparrows and
martins chirped from the ivy, the sheep bleating sounded musically from
the distance.
'It is an ill wind that blows no one any good,' laughed Dr. Heriot; 'my
mare's lameness has given me an excuse for idleness. Look at that fellow
Marsden; it puts one into a good temper only to look at him; he reminds
one of a moorland breeze, so healthy and so exuberant.'
'We are going to see the dairy!' cried Polly, springing up; 'Chriss and
I and Mr. Marsden. Olive is too lazy to come.'
'No, I am only tired,' returned Olive, a little weary of the mirth and
longing for quiet.
When the others had gone she stole up the crazy stairs and stood for a
long time in the great window looking at the old gateway. They all
wondered where she was, when Hugh found her and brought her down, and
they walked home through the gray glimmering fields.
'I wonder of what you were thinking when I came in and startled you?'
asked Hugh presently.
'I don't know--at least I cannot tell you,' returned Olive, blushing in
the dusky light. Could she tell any one the wonderful thoughts that
sometimes came to her at such hours; would he understand it if she
could?
The young man looked disconcerted--almost hurt.
'You think I should not understand,' he returned, a little piqued, in
spite of his sweet temper; 'you have never forgiven me my scepticism
with regard to poetry. I thought you did not bear malice, Miss Olive.'
'Neither do I,' she returned, distressed. 'I was only sorry for you
then, and I am sorry now you miss so much; poetry is like music, you
know, and seems to harmonise and go with everything.'
'Nature has made me prosaic and stupid, I suppose,' returned Hugh,
almost sorrowfully. He did not like to be told that he could not
understand; he had a curious notion that he would like to know the
thoughts that had made her eyes so soft and shining; it seemed strange
to him that any girl should dwell so apart in a world of her own. 'How
you must despise me,' he said at last, with a touch of bitterness, 'for
being what I am.'
'Hush, Mr. Marsden, how can you talk so?' returned Olive in a voice of
rebuke.
The idea shocked her. What were her beautiful thoughts compared to his
deeds--her dreamy, contemplative life contrasted with his intense
working energies? As she looked up at the great broad-shouldered young
fellow striding beside her, with swinging arms and great voice, and
simple boyish face, it came upon her that perhaps his was the very
essence of poetry, the entire harmony of mind and will with the work
that was planned for him.
'Oh, Mr. Marsden, you must never say that again,' she said earnestly, so
that Hugh was mollified.
And then, as was often the case with the foolish-fond fellow, when he
could get a listener, he descanted eagerly about his little Croydon
house and his mother and sisters. Olive was always ready to hear what
interested people; she thought Hugh was not without a certain homely
poetry as she listened--perhaps the moonlight, the glimmering fields, or
Olive's soft sympathy inspired him; but he made her see it all.
The little old house, with its faded carpet and hangings, and its
cupboards of blue dragon-china--'bogie-china' as they had called it in
their childhood--the old-fashioned country town, the gray old
almshouses, Church Street, steep and winding, and the old church with
its square tower, and four poplar trees--yes, she could see it all.
Olive and Chriss even knew all about Dora and Florence and Sophy; they
had seen their photographs at least a dozen times, large, plain-featured
women, with pleasant kindly eyes, Dora especially.
Dora was an invalid, and wrote little books for the Christian Knowledge
Society, and Florence and Sophy gave lessons in the shabby little
parlour that looked out on Church Street; through the wire blinds the
sisters' little scholars looked out at the old-fashioned butcher's shop
and the adjoining jeweller's. At the back of the house there was a long
narrow garden, with great bushes of lavender and rosemary.
The letters that came to Hugh were all fragrant with lavender, great
bunches of it decked the vases in his little parlour at Miss Farrer's;
antimacassars, knitted socks, endless pen-wipers and kettle-holders,
were fashioned for Hugh in the little back room with its narrow windows
looking over the garden, where Dora always lay on her little couch.
'She is such a good woman--they are all such good women,' he would say,
with clumsy eloquence that went to Olive's heart; 'they are never sad
and moping, they believe the best of everybody, and work from morning
till night, and they are so good to the poor, Sophy especially.'
'How I should like to know them,' Olive would reply simply; she believed
Hugh implicitly when he assured her that Florence was the handsomest
woman he knew; love had beautified those plain-featured women into
absolute beauty, divine kindness and goodness shone out of their eyes,
devotion and purity had transformed them.
'That is what Dora says, she would so like to know you; they have read
your book and they think it beautiful. They say you must be so good to
have such thoughts!' cried Hugh, with sudden effusion.
'What are you two young people talking about?' cried Dr. Heriot's voice
in the darkness. 'Polly has quarrelled with me, and Chriss is cross, and
Miss Lambert is dreadfully tired.'
'Are you tired, Aunt Milly? Mr. Marsden has been telling me about his
sisters, and--and--I think we have had a little quarrel too.'
'No, it was I that was cross,' returned Hugh, with his big laugh; 'it
always tries my temper when people talk in an unknown tongue.'
Olive gave him a kind look as she bade him good-night.
'I have enjoyed hearing about your sisters, so you must never call
yourself prosaic and stupid again, Mr. Marsden,' she said, as she
followed the others into the house.