Part 17 (1/2)

Hester was skimming back towards them.

”Don't mention it to James and his wife,” she said to d.i.c.k. ”He has to speak at a temperance meeting to-night. I will tell them when the meeting is over.”

”That's just as well,” said d.i.c.k, ”for I know if James jawed much at me I should act on the text that it is more blessed to give than to receive.”

”In what way?”

”Either way,” said d.i.c.k. ”Tongue or fist. It does not matter which, so long as you give more than you get. And the text is quite right. It is blessed, for I've tried it over and over again, and found it true every time. But I don't want to try it on James if he's anything like what he was as a curate.”

”He is not much altered,” said Hester.

”He is the kind of man that would not alter much,” said d.i.c.k. ”I expect G.o.d Almighty likes him as he is.”

Mr. and Mrs. Gresley, meanwhile, were receiving Mrs. Pratt and the two Misses Pratt in the drawing-room. Selina and Ada Pratt were fine, handsome young women, with long upper lips, who wore their smart sailor hats tilted backwards to show their bushy fringes, and whose m.u.f.f-chains, with swinging pendent hearts, silk blouses and sequin belts and brown boots represented to Mrs. Gresley the highest pinnacle of the world of fas.h.i.+on.

Selina was the most popular, being liable to shrieks of laughter at the smallest witticisms, and always ready for that species of amus.e.m.e.nt termed ”bally-ragging” or ”hay-making.” But Ada was the most admired.

She belonged to that type which in hotel society and country towns is always termed ”queenly.” She ”kept the men at a distance.” She ”never allowed them to take liberties,” etc., etc. She held her chin up and her elbows out, and was considered by the section of Middles.h.i.+re society in which she shone to be very distinguished. Mrs. Pratt was often told that her daughter looked like a d.u.c.h.ess; and this facsimile of the aristocracy, or rather of the most distressing traits of its latest recruits, had a manner of lolling with crossed legs in the parental carriage and pair which was greatly admired. ”Looks as if she was born to it all,” Mr. Pratt would say to his wife.

Mrs. Gresley was just beginning to fear her other guests were not coming when two tall figures were seen walking across the lawn, with Hester between them.

Mr. Gresley sallied forth to meet them, and blasts of surprised welcome were borne into the drawing-room by the summer air.

”But it was locked. I locked it myself.” Inaudible reply.

”Padlocked. Only opens to the word Moon. Key on my own watch-chain.”

Inaudible reply.

”Hinges! ha! ha! ha! Very good, d.i.c.k. Likely story that. I see you're the same as ever. Travellers' tales. But we are not so easily taken in, are we, Hester?”

Mrs. Gresley certainly had the gift of prophecy as far as the Pratts were concerned. Mrs. Pratt duly took the expected ”fancy” to Rachel, and pressed her to stay at ”The Towers” while she was in the neighborhood, and make further acquaintance with her ”young ladies.”

”Ada is very pernickety,” she said, smiling towards that individual conversing with d.i.c.k. ”She won't make friends with everybody, and she gives it me” (with maternal pride) ”when I ask people to stay whom she does not take to. She says there's a very poor lot round here, and most of the young ladies so ill-bred and empty she does not care to make friends with them. I don't know where she gets all her knowledge from.

I'm sure it's not from her mother. Ada, now you come and talk a little to Miss West.”

Ada rose with the air of one who confers a favor, and Rachel made room for her on the sofa, while Mrs. Pratt squeezed herself behind the tea-table with Mrs. Gresley.

The conversation turned on bicycling.

”I bike now and then in the country,” said Ada, ”but I have not done much lately. We have only just come down from town, and, _of course_, I never bike in London.”

Rachel had just said that she did.

”Perhaps you are nervous about the traffic,” said Rachel.

”Oh! I'm not the least afraid of the traffic, but it's such bad form to bike in London.”

”That, of course, depends on how it's done,” said Rachel; ”but I am sure in your ease you need not be afraid.”