Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/96

88 with rising passion, "are different to ours in most things, as the Lawrences have found to their cost before this!"

Mrs. Lawrence bit her lip and looked steadily down at the faded pattern of the carpet. The surface comedy, not the hidden pathos of every situation of human life, was always what really impressed Dot vividly; and she had all the trouble in the world not to laugh at this moment. She, Dora Fane, listening to virtuous homilies from old Barbara! Dora Fane pitied, as a wife whose heart was breaking over a faithless husband's neglect! Mechanically, Mrs. Lawrence passed her fingers down over her pocket to make sure that two letters, which had reached her by the morning's post, were lying safe there.

"I couldn't hear a word against Steven, and I don't know who the 'other person' is you speak of. He rode to the meet with the Squire and Miss Fane to-day. Of course, if I was strong, I would like to ride too, but I'm not strong, and—and I could never wish Steven to be in better company than my Uncle Frank and my dear cousin Katharine."

She said this with as pretty an air of self-sacrifice as can be imagined, and Barbara's stern heart softened more and more. "You'll never be strong," she said, "as long as you mope indoors by yourself and don't breathe the air from one week's end to another, and so I'll tell Steven to-night. Why don't he set up a pony shay and drive you about a bit, as his Uncle Joshua used his wife?" cried Barbara, forgetting, probably, the unending source of strife which that very pony shay had been between herself and Mrs. Joshua.

"Oh, I'm sure I don't want any fresh expense incurred for me," said Dot, modestly. "Perhaps, if we had a pony carriage, it would bore Steven to have to drive me in it. What would do me good, I think, and not cost much," she gave a quick look at Barbara's face, "would be a little change—that is, I mean if Steven thought it right to leave the farm."

"It would be hard to say what Steven does think right now," said Barbara, with a solemn shake of the head, as she walked off out of the parlor. "But he shall hear my mind—he shall hear my mind!" This Dora overheard as the old woman's firm, heavy step went down the passage. "Those whom God hath put together—" here the welcome sound of crackling fat told Dora the ham was coming off the fire, and the rest of the quotation was lost. "And not all the gentry in England shall hinder me from telling Steven what I think of him, aye—and of her, too!"

A minute later the hot scones and ham, with extra good tea and extra thick cream, were set upon the table, and poor Mrs. Lawrence, considering the state of her delicate throat and of her wounded affections, managed to make a really admirable high tea.