the hands of the Almighty, too, isn't it?"
"No; yes. Of course everything is in God's hands."
"The children, the dukedom, and all the estates."
"I never knew any one so provoking," she exclaimed.
"One is at any rate as much as another."
"You don't a bit understand me," she said. "Of course if I go and get married, I do get married."
"And if you have children, you do have children. If you do, – and I hope you will, – I'm sure they'll be very pretty and well behaved. That will be your duty, and then you'll have to see that Llwddythlw has what he likes for dinner."
"I shall do nothing of the kind."
"Then he'll dine at the Club, or at the House of Commons. That's my idea of married life."
"Nothing beyond that? No community of soul?"
"Certainly not."
"No!"
"Because you believe in the Trinity, Llwddythlw won't go to heaven. If he were to take to gambling and drinking you wouldn't go to the other place."
"How can you be so horrid."
"That would be a community of souls, – as souls are understood. A community of interests I hope you will have, and, in order that you may, take care and look after his dinner." She could not make much more of her cousin in the way of confidence, but she did exact a promise from him, that he would be in attendance at her wedding.
A few days afterwards he returned to Hendon Park, leaving his sister to remain for a fortnight longer at Castle Hautboy.
CHAPTER XV
"I saw him go in a full quarter of an hour since, and Marion Fay went in before. I feel quite sure that she knew that he was expected." Thus spoke Clara Demijohn to her mother.
"How could she have known it," asked Mrs. Duffer, who was present in Mrs. Demijohn's parlour, where the two younger women were standing with their faces close to the window, with their gloves on and best bonnets, ready for church.
"I am sure she did, because she had made herself smarter than ever with her new brown silk, and her new brown gloves, and her new brown hat, – sly little Quaker that she is. I can see when a girl has made herself up for some special occasion. She wouldn't have put on new gloves surely to go to church with Mrs. Roden."
"If you stay staring there any longer you'll both be late," said Mrs. Demijohn.
"Mrs. Roden hasn't gone yet," said Clara, lingering. It was Sunday morning, and the ladies at No. 10 were preparing for their devotions. Mrs. Demijohn herself never went to church, having some years since had a temporary attack of sciatica, which had provided her with a perpetual excuse for not leaving the house on a Sunday morning. She was always left at home with a volume of Blair's Sermons; but Clara, who was a clever girl, was well aware that more than half a page was never read. She was aware also that great progress was then made with the novel which happened to have last come into the house from the little circulating library round the corner. The ringing of the neighbouring church bell had come to its final tinkling, and Mrs. Duffer knew that she must start, or disgrace herself in the eyes of the pew-opener. "Come, my dear," she said; and away they went. As the door of No. 10 opened so did that of No. 11 opposite, and the four ladies, including Marion Fay, met in the road. "You have a visitor this morning," said Clara.
"Yes; – a friend of my son's."
"We know all about it," said Clara. "Don't you think he's a very fine-looking young man, Miss Fay?"
"Yes, I do," said Marion. "He is certainly a handsome young man."
"Beauty is but skin deep," said Mrs. Duffer.
"But still it goes a long way," said Clara, "particularly with high birth and noble rank."
"He is an excellent young man, as far as I know him," said Mrs. Roden, thinking that she was called upon to defend her son's friend.
Hampstead had returned home on the Saturday, and had taken the earliest opportunity on the following Sunday morning to go over to his friend at Holloway. The distance was about six miles, and he had driven over, sending the vehicle back with the intention of walking home. He would get his friend to walk with him, and then should take place that conversation which he feared would become excessively unpleasant before it was finished. He was shown up to the drawing-room of No. 11, and there he found all alone a young woman whom he had never seen before. This was Marion Fay, the daughter of Zachary Fay, a Quaker, who lived at No. 17, Paradise Row. "I had thought Mrs. Roden was here," he said.
"Mrs. Roden will be down directly. She is putting her bonnet on to go to church."
"And Mr. Roden?" he asked. "He I suppose is not going to church with her?"
"Ah, no; I wish he were. George Roden never goes to church."
"Is he a friend of yours?"
"For his mother's sake I was speaking; – but why not for his also? He is not specially my friend, but I wish well to all men. He is not at home at present, but I understood that he will be here shortly."
"Do you always go to church?" he asked, grounding his question not on any impertinent curiosity as to her observance of her religious duties, but because he had thought from her dress she must certainly be a Quaker.
"I do usually go to your church on a Sunday."
"Nay," said he, "I have no right to claim it as my church. I fear you must regard me also as a heathen, – as you do George Roden."
"I am sorry for that, sir. It cannot be good that any man should be a heathen when so much Christian teaching is abroad. But men I think allow themselves a freedom of thought from which women in their timidity are apt to shrink. If so it is surely good that we should be cowards?" Then the door opened, and Mrs. Roden came into the room.
"George is gone," she said, "to call on a sick friend, but he will be back immediately. He got your letter yesterday evening, and he left word that I was to tell you that he would be back by eleven. Have you introduced yourself to my friend Miss Fay?"
"I had not heard her name," he said smiling, "but we had introduced ourselves."
"Marion Fay is my name," said the girl, "and yours, I suppose is – Lord Hampstead."
"So now we may be supposed to know each other for ever after," he replied, laughing; " – only I fear, Mrs. Roden, that your friend will repudiate the acquaintance because I do not go to church."
"I said not so, Lord Hampstead. The nearer we were to being friends, – if that were possible, – the more I should regret it." Then the two ladies started on their morning duty.
Lord Hampstead when he was alone immediately decided that he would like to have Marion Fay for a friend, and not the less so because she went to church. He felt that she had been right in saying that audacity in speculation on religious subjects was not becoming a young woman. As it was unfitting that his sister Lady Frances should marry a Post Office clerk, so would it have been unbecoming that Marion Fay should have been what she herself called a heathen. Surely of all the women on whom his eyes had ever rested she was, – he would not say to himself the most lovely, – but certainly the best worth looking at. The close brown bonnet and the little cap, and the well-made brown silk dress, and the brown gloves on her little hands, together made, to his eyes, as pleasing a female attire as a girl could well wear. Could it have been by accident that the graces of her form were so excellently shown? It had to be supposed that she, as a Quaker, was indifferent to outside feminine garniture. It is the theory of a Quaker that she should be so, and in every article she had adhered closely to Quaker rule. As far as he could see there was not a ribbon about her. There was no variety of colour. Her head-dress was as simple and close as any that could have been worn by her grandmother. Hardly a margin of smooth hair appeared between her cap and her forehead. Her dress fitted close to her neck, and on her shoulders she wore a tight-fitting shawl. The purpose in her raiment had been Quaker all through. The exquisite grace must have come altogether by accident, – just because it had pleased nature to make her