‘There you’re wrong, again, ma’am,’ put in Mrs. Oswald, stoutly. ‘My husband, he sent Harry to Plymouth School at our own expense; and after that he got an exhibition from the school, and an open scholarship, I think they call it, at the college; and he’s been no more beholden to patronage, ma’am, than your brother the Archdeacon was, nor for the matter o’ that not so much neither; for I’ve a’ways understood the old Squire sent him first to the Charterhouse, and afterwards he got a living through Lord Modbury’s influence, as the Squire voted regular with the Modbury people for the borough and county. But George was always independent, Miss Luttrell, and beholden to neither Luttrells nor Modburies, and that I tell ‘ee to your face, ma’am, and no shame of it either.’
‘Well, well, Mrs. Oswald,’ said the old lady, shaking her head more violently than ever at this direct discomfiture, ‘I don’t want to argue with you about the matter. I dare say your son’s a very worthy young man, and has worked his way up into a position he wasn’t intended for by Providence. But it’s no business of mine, thank heaven, it’s no business of mine, for I’m not responsible for all the vagaries of all the tradespeople on my brother’s estate, nor don’t want to be. There’s Mrs. Figgins, now, the baker’s wife; her daughter has just chosen to get married to a bank clerk in London; and I said to her this morning, “Well, Mrs. Figgins, so you’ve let your Polly go and pick up with some young fellow from town that you’ve never seen before, haven’t you? And that’s the way of all you people. You marry your girls to bank clerks without a reference, for the sake of getting ’em off your hands, and what’s the consequence? They rob their employers to keep up a pretty household for their wives, as if they were fine ladies; and then at last the thing’s discovered, there comes a smash, they run away to America, and you have your daughters and their children thrown back again penniless upon your hands.” That’s what I said to her, Mrs. Oswald. And how’s YOUR daughter, by the way—Jemima I think you call her; how’s she, eh, tell me?’
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Luttrell, but her name’s not Jemima; it’s Edith.’
‘Oh, Edith, is it? Well to be sure! The grand names girls have dangling about with them nowadays! My name’s plain Catherine, and it’s good enough for me, thank goodness. But these young ladies of the new style must be Ediths and Eleanors and Ophelias, and all that heathenish kind of thing, as if they were princesses of the blood or play-actresses, instead of being good Christian Susans and Janes and Betties, like their grandmothers were before them. And Miss Edith, now, what is SHE doing?’
‘She’s doing nothing in particular at this moment, Miss Luttrell, leastways not so far as I know of; but she’s going up to Oxford part of this term on a visit to her brother.’
‘Going up to Oxford, my good woman! Why, heaven bless the girl, she’d much better stop at home and learn her catechism. She should try to do her duty in that station of life to which it has pleased Providence to call her, instead of running after young gentlemen above her own rank and place in society at Oxford. Tell her so from me, Mrs. Oswald, and mind you don’t send the tea dusty. Two pounds of your best, if you please, as soon as you can send it. Good-morning.’ And Miss Luttrell, having discovered the absolute truth of the shocking rumour which had reached her about Edith’s projected visit, the confirmation of which was the sole object of her colloquy, wagged her way out of the shop again successfully, and was duly assisted by the page-boy into her shambling little palsied donkey-chair.
‘That was all the old cat came about, you warr’nt you,’ muttered Mr. Oswald himself from behind his biscuit-boxes. ‘Must have heard it from the Rector’s wife, and wanted to find out if it was true, to go and tell Mrs. Walters o’ such a bit o’ turble presumptiousness.’
Meanwhile, in the little study with the bow-window over the shop, Harry and Edie Oswald were busily discussing the necessary preparations for Edie’s long-promised visit to the University.
‘I hope you’ve got everything nice in the way of dress, you know, Edie,’ said Harry. ‘You’ll want a decent dinner dress, of course, for you’ll be asked out to dine at least once or twice; and I want you to have everything exceedingly proper and pretty.’
‘I think I’ve got all I need in that way, Harry; I’ve my dark poplin, cut square in the bodice, for one dinner dress, and my high black silk to fall back upon for another. Worn open in front, with a lace handkerchief and a locket, it does really very nicely. Then I’ve got three afternoon dresses, the grey you gave me, the sage-greeny aesthetic one, and the peacock-blue with the satin box-pleats. It’s a charming dress, the peacock-blue; it looks as if it might have stepped straight out of a genuine Titian. It came home from Miss Wells’s this morning. Wait five minutes, like a dear boy, and I’ll run and put it on and let you see me in it.’
‘That’s a good girl, do. I’m so anxious you should have all your clothes the exact pink of perfection, Popsy. Though I’m afraid I’m a very poor critic in that matter—if you were only a problem in space of four dimensions, now! Yet, after all, every man or woman is more of a problem than anything in x square plus y square you can possibly set yourself.’
Edie ran lightly up into her own room, and soon reappeared clad resplendent in the new peacock-blue dress, with hat and parasol to match, and a little creamy lamb’s-wool scarf thrown with artful carelessness around her pretty neck and shoulders. Harry looked at her with unfeigned admiration. Indeed, you would not easily find many lighter or more fairly-like little girls than Edie Oswald, even in the beautiful half-Celtic South Hams of Devon. In figure she was rather small than short, for though she was but a wee thing, her form was so exactly and delicately modelled that she might have looked tall if she stood alone at a little distance. She never walked, but seemed to dance about from place to place, so buoyant and light, that Harry doubted whether in her case gravitation could really vary as the square of the distance—it seemed, in fact, to be almost diminished in the proportions of the cube. Her hair and eyes—such big bright eyes!—were dark; but her complexion was scarcely brunette, and the colour in her cheeks was rich and peach-like, after the true Devonian type. She was dimpled whenever she smiled, and she smiled often; her full lips giving a peculiar ripe look to her laughing mouth that suited admirably with her light and delicate style of beauty. Perhaps some people might have thought them too full; certainly they irresistibly suggested to a critical eye the distinct notion of kissability. As she stood there, faintly blushing, waiting to be admired by her brother, in her neatly fitting dainty blue dress, her lips half parted, and her arms held carelessly at her side, she looked about as much like a fairy picture as it is given to mere human flesh and blood to look.
‘It’s delicious, Edie,’ said Harry, surveying her from, head to foot with a smile of satisfaction which made her blush deepen; ‘it’s simply delicious. Where on earth did you get the idea of it?’
‘Well, it’s partly the present style,’ said Edie; ‘but I took the notion of the bodice partly too from that Vandyck, you know, in the Palazzo Bossi at Genoa.’
‘I remember, I remember,’ Harry answered, contemplating her with an admiring eye. ‘Now just turn round and show me how it sits behind, Edie. You recollect Théophile Gautier says the one great advantage which a beautiful woman possesses over a beautiful statue is this, that while a man has to walk round the beautiful statue in order to see it from every side, he can ask the beautiful woman to turn herself round and let him see her, without requiring to take that trouble.’
‘Théophile Gautier was a horrid man, and if anybody but my brother quoted such a thing as that to me I should be very angry with him indeed.’
‘Théophile Gautier was quite as horrid as you consider him to be, and if you were anybody but my sister it isn’t probable I should have quoted him to you. But if there is any statue on earth prettier or more