Page:The Semi-attached Couple.djvu/33

 picked it up for her. Such an incident! Mrs. Thompson, as usual, missed it, because she was unluckily tying her little girl's bonnet-strings. There was a rush into the churchyard the moment the sermon was over, to which nobody had attended, except those who were watching for "Lastly." And when Lady Helen came out, leaning on her father's arm, and Lady Eskdale followed, attended by the tall young man, and when they all bowed and curtsied, and got into the open carriage, the father and mother sitting forwards and the young people opposite to them, and when Lord Eskdale took off his black hat and bowed on one side, and the young man took off his gray hat and bowed on the other, nothing could exceed the gratification of the assembly. Lord Teviot was exactly what they expected, so very distinguished and so good-looking. Some thought him too attentive to his prayers for a man in love, and some thought him too attentive to Lady Helen for a man in church; but eventually the two factions joined, and thought him simply very attentive. They all saw that Lady Helen was very fond of him, and nobody could be surprised at that. It was a most satisfactory Sunday; and as most of them were addicted to the immoral practice of Sunday letter-writing, the observations of the morning were reduced to writing in the evening, and sent off to various parts of England on Monday morning. But hardly had the post gone out, when an alarming report arose that the real, genuine Lord Teviot had gone up to town on Saturday, and that the "observed of all observers" was an architect come down to complete the statue gallery. It was too true: the reaction was frightful, and, as usual in all cases of reaction, the odium fell on the wrong man. The architect, who was in fact an awkward, ungainly concern, remained in possession of distinguished looks, and with the glory of being very attentive to Lady Helen; and it was generally asserted that