Walden patted the boy's rough towzled head gently, and thought of his faithful 'Nebbie.' It would have been mere hypocrisy to preach resignation to Bob, when he, the Reverend John, knew perfectly well that if his own canine comrade had been thus cruelly slain, he also would have 'hated the quality.'
"Look here, Bob," he said at last,--"I know just how you feel! It's just as bad as bad can be. But try and be a man, won't you? You can't bring the poor little creature back to life again,--and it's no use frightening your mother with all this grief for what cannot be helped. Then there's poor Kitty--SHE 'hates the quality';--her little heart is sore and full of bad feelings--all for the sake of you and your dog, Bob! She's giving her mother no end of trouble up at the Manor, crying and fretting--suppose you go and see her? Talk it over together, like two good children, and try if you can't comfort each other. What do you say?"
Bob rose from beside the chair where he had flung himself on his knees when Walden had entered his mother's cottage,--and rubbed his knuckles hard into his eyes with a long and dismal sniff.
"I'll try, sir!" he said chokingly, and then suddenly seizing 'Passon's' hand, he kissed it with boyish fervour, caught up his cap and ran out. Walden stood for a moment inert,--there was an uncomfortable tightness in his throat.
"Poor lad!" he said to himself,--"He is suffering as much in his way as older people suffer in theirs,--perhaps even more,--because to the young, injustice always seems strange--to the old it has become customary and natural!"
He sighed,--and with a pleasant word or two to Mrs. Keeley, who waited at her door for him to come out, and who thanked him profusely for coming to 'hearten up the boy,' he went on his usual round through the village, uncomfortably conscious that perhaps his first impressions respecting Miss Vancourt's home-coming were correct,--and that it might have been better for the peace and happiness of all the simple inhabitants of St. Rest, if she had never come.
Certainly there was no denying that a change had crept over the little sequestered place,--a change scarcely perceptible, but nevertheless existent. A vague restlessness pervaded the atmosphere,--each inhabitant of each cottage was always on the look- out for a passing glimpse of one of the Abbot's Manor guests, or one of the Abbot's Manor servants,--it did not matter which, so long as something or somebody from the Manor came along. Sir Morton Pippitt had, of course, not failed to take full advantage of any slight surface or social knowledge he possessed of Miss Vancourt's guests,- -and had, with his usual bluff pomposity, invited them all over to Badsworth Hall. Some of them accepted his invitation,--others declined it. Lord Charlemont and Mr. Bludlip Courtenay discovered him to be a 'game old boy'--while Lady Wicketts and Miss Fosby found something congenial in the society of Miss Tabitha Pippitt, who, cherishing as she did, an antique-virgin passion for the Reverend John Walden, whom her father detested, had come to regard herself as a sort of silent martyr to the rough usages of this world, and was therefore not unwilling to listen to the long stories of life's disillusions which Lady Wicketts unravelled for her benefit, and which Miss Fosby, with occasional references to the photographs and prints of the 'Madonna' or the 'Girl with Lilies' tearfully confirmed. So the motor-cars continually flashed between Abbot's Manor and Badsworth Hall, and Lady Beaulyon apparently found so much to amuse her that she stayed on longer than she had at first intended. So did Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay. They had their reasons for prolonging their visit,--reasons more cogent than love of fresh air, or admiration of pastoral scenery. Both of them kept up an active correspondence with Maryllia's aunt, Mrs. Fred Vancourt, a lady who was their 'very dear' friend, owing to her general usefulness in the matter of money. And Mrs. Fred having a fixed plan in her mind concerning the welfare and good establishment of her niece, they were not unwilling to assist her in the furtherance of her views, knowing that whatever trouble they took would be substantially rewarded 'under the rose.'