Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/417

 He spoke so very much as if he meant what he said, that Mr. Mackworth gave way, greatly to his daughter's satisfaction, and followed their host across the hall to a long drawing-room, fragrant with the sweet breath of the conservatory on which it opened. Here, as elsewhere, all was fresh and new: and on the walls were pictures which riveted her father in a moment. He had a great natural taste for art, and during a tour he had once made in Italy as tutor to a friend, that taste had been highly cultivated. His remarks showed such thorough knowledge and discrimination that Mr. Langley felt rather out of bis depth, and turned to Mary:

"Do you care for pictures?" he asked her.

"I care," she answered, " but I am quite ignorant about them. I know what I like, and that is all."

"And that is exactly my case," said Mr. Langley. "I know nothing else about them."

"You must have had excellent taste to begin with," Mr. Mackworth put in, "to select as you have selected. See, Mary," he added, pointing out one of Millais' gorgeous pieces of colouring; "is not this what you once described to me?"

"Oh! yes," cried Mary eagerly, as pleased as if she were greeting an old friend: "it was in the Royal Academy two years ago."

"Do you often go to the Royal Academy?" asked Mr. Langley.

"Whenever I can. Mrs. Halroyd likes her children to go sometimes, and then I take them. I am their governess," she said, in answer to Mr. Langley's inquiring look.

"I treat myself to an hour there, too, whenever I can; it does one good after a dull day's work."

"Oh! doesn't it?" said Mary: "I always think, after a few months in London, that one gets so weary of never seeing anything but what is ugly."

"You don't like London, I see," said Mr. Langley, smiling.

"Who can? I like the people I am with there—I am as happy as possible—but, as to London itself! I do so long for something green to look at: something really green and wild, not all prim and spoilt, like the parks."

"I believe," said her father, amused by her genuine earnestness, "that my daughter would have everybody agree that London is unfit for human habitation. Now I, on the contrary, think London life is one well worth the living."

At this moment, when the curate had given up his study of the pictures on account of the gathering darkness, tea made its appearance. Lamps were brought by one or two soft-treading servants, and a square table seemed to start from the large bow window, covered with shining silver, exquisite china, and the whitest of napery. Mary's perfect enjoyment was a little marred by her almost self-reproachful regret at being there instead of Cilla, and also by a slight degree of shyness which crept over her when the comfortable twilight no longer sheltered her. This feeling was rather increased by the entrance of a small pretty woman dressed in handsome half mourning, whom Mr. Langley introduced as "my sister, Mrs. Lester." He briefly explained to her the affair of the bank-notes, and she turned to Mary with warm thanks and expressions of the greatest relief.

"It is more than you deserve, Vincent," she said, shaking her head at her brother. And then she took her place at the table, and dispensed most welcome cups of tea; and the conversation grew so animated that both Mary and her father were sorry when the brougham was announced. As they rose to go, Mr. Langley came up to the curate rather nervously, and offered him something enclosed in an envelope.

"You must let me pay my debts," he said. Mr. Mackworth looked at him for a moment in bewilderment: then suddenly examined the packet, and tendered it back, shaking his head.

"But I really shall not feel satisfied unless I pay the reward, as I have publicly offered it—for your poor people, Mr. Mackworth," said the banker.

"For his penance, Mr. Mackworth, on moral grounds you ought to take it," interposed Mrs. Lester: "don't you think so?" She turned her agreeable face on Mary, who laughed and hazarded no opinion. To tell the truth, she would have had no objection at all to those five hundred pounds and the comfort they would bring to her mother and Cilla, the advantages to Harry, the addition to every one's well-being. No doubt papa was right, and she was low-minded and ignoble, but still!—so she said nothing, and her father rejoined:

"As to my poor people, if you like to spend the sum in charity, there are plenty of ways of doing so, which I am sure I need not point out to you. I thank you very much for your hospitality, and above all for the sight of those pictures: you don't know the treat it has been to me."

"You must come by daylight: this evening it was too dark to see them well," said Mr. Langley. "Will you not bring him?" he added, as he handed Mary to the carriage.