CHAPTER X.
A DUTY VISIT.
Antonia's appearance at Leicester House was the occasion of a flight ofnewspaper paragraphs.
The _St. James's Evening Post_ reminded its readers of the romanticmarriage of a well-known Hibernian nobleman, "which we were the firstto announce to the town, and of which full particulars were given inour columns; a freak of fancy on the part of the last Baron Kilrush,amply justified by the dazzling beauty of the young lady who made hercurtsey to the Princess Dowager last week, sponsored by Lady MargaretLaroche, a connection of the late Lord Kilrush, and, as everybodyknows, a star of the first magnitude in the _beau monde_." Herefollowed a description of the lady's personal appearance: her gown ofwhite tabinet with a running pattern of shamrocks worked in silver, andthe famous Kilrush pearls, which had not been seen for a quarter of acentury.
_Lloyd's_ was more piquant, and had recourse to initials. "It is notgenerally known that the lovely young widow who was the cynosure ofneighbouring eyes at St. James's on his Majesty's birthday, began lifein very humble circumstances. Her father, Mr. T----n, was bred for theChurch, but spent his youth as an itinerant tutor to lads of fashion,and did not prove an ornament to his sacred calling. He brought hisclerical career to a hasty close by an ill-judged indulgence of thetender passion. His elopement with a buxom wench from a Lincolnshirehomestead would have caused him less trouble had not his naturalgallantry induced him to relieve his sweetheart of the burden ofher father's cash-box, for which mistaken kindness he suffered twoyears' seclusion among highwaymen and pickpockets. The beautiful LadyK----h was educated in the classics and in modern literature by thisclever but unprincipled parent; and she is said to owe an independenceof all religious dogma to the parental training. There is no suchuncompromising infidel as an unfrocked priest."
The _Daily Journal_ had its scraps of information. "A little birdhas told us that the new beauty, whose appearance on the birthday sofluttered their dovecotes at St. James's Palace, spent her early youthin third-floor lodgings in a paved court adjoining St. Martin's Lane,where the young lady and her father drudged for the booksellers. 'Tisconfidently asserted that this lovely _bas-bleu_ had a considerableshare in several comedies and burlettas produced by Mr. Garrick underthe ostensible authorship of her father. 'Tis rarely that genius,beauty, and wealth are to be found united in a widow of three andtwenty summers. How rich a quarry for our fops and fortune-hunters!"
The _St. James's_ held forth again on the same theme. "Among thenumerous motives which conjecture has put forward for the mysteriousmarriage in high life some two years ago--the most interestingparticulars of which we alone were able to supply--the real reason hasbeen entirely overlooked. Our more intimate knowledge of the _beaumonde_ enables us to hit the right nail on the head. By his deathbedunion with the penniless daughter of a Grub-Street hack, Lord K----was able to gratify his hatred of the young gentleman who ought tohave been his heir. We are credibly informed that this unfortunateyouth, first cousin of the brilliant but eccentric Irish peer, is nowsubsisting on a pittance in a labourer's cottage on a common nearRichmond Park."
This last contribution to the literature of gossip seriously affectedAntonia. She had read all the rest with a sublime indifference.She had been behind the scenes, and knew how such paragraphs wereconcocted--had, indeed, written a good deal of fashionable intelligenceherself, collected by Mr. Thornton sometimes from the chairmen waitingat street corners, in those summer evening walks with his daughter, orin the grey autumn nights, when the town had a picturesque air in thelong perspective of oil lamps that looked like strings of topazes hungupon the darkness. The Grub-Street hack had not thought it beneath himto converse in an affable humour with a chairman or a running footman,and so to discover how the most beautiful duchess in England wasspending the evening, how much she lost at faro last night, and who itwas handed her to her chair.
Antonia threw aside the papers with a contemptuous smile. They stabbedher to the heart when they maligned her dead father; but she was wiseenough to refrain from any attempted refutation of a slander in which,alas! there might be a grain of truth. Her father was at rest. Themalicious paragraph could not hurt him, and for her own part she had avirile stoicism which helped her to bear such attacks. She looked backat her journalistic work, and was thankful to remember that she hadnever written anything ill-natured, even when her father had urged herto give more point to a paragraph, and to insinuate that a lover hadpaid the duchess's losses at cards, or that there had been a curiousshuffling of new-born babies in the ducal mansion. Her sprightliestlines had shone with a lambent flame that hurt nobody.
Her husband's rightful heir starving in a hovel! That was a concretefact with which she could cope. But for the motive of that deathbedbond, she knew better than the hack scribbler; she knew that apassionate love, baulked and disappointed in life, had triumphed in thehour of death. He had bound her to himself to the end of her existence,in the sublime tyranny of that love which had not realized its strengthtill too late.
And that he should be supposed to have been actuated by a pettyspite--an old man's hatred of a youthful heir!
"What reptiles these scribblers are!" she thought, "that will sell liesby the guinea's worth, and think themselves honest if they give fullmeasure."
She sent for Goodwin.
"You must know all about his lordship's family," she said. "Can youtell me of any cousin whom he may be said to have disinherited?"
"There is no one who could be rightly called his lordship's heir, mylady; but there is a young gentleman, a cousin, only son to a sisterof his lordship's father, who may at one time have expected to comeinto some of the property, the entail having expired, and there beingno direct heir in existence."
"Had this gentleman offended his lordship?"
"Yes, my lady. He behaved very badly indeed, and his lordship forbadehim the house."
"Was he dissipated--a spendthrift?"
"No, my lady. I don't think his lordship would have taken that so illin a fine young man with a wealthy mother. It would have been onlynatural for him to be a man of pleasure. But Mr. Stobart's conduct wasvery bad indeed. He left the army----"
"A coward?"
"No, my lady, I don't think we can call him that. He was singled outfor his dash and spirit in the retreat at Fontenoy, where he saved thelife of his superior officer at the risk of his own. But soon afterhis regiment came home he took up religion, left off powdering hishair, sold his commission, and gave the money to the building fund forWesley's Chapel in the City Road."
"He must be a foolish fellow, I think," said Antonia, who was notfascinated by this description. "And was his lordship seriouslyoffended by this conduct?"
"He didn't like the young gentleman turning Methodist, my lady; butthat was not the worst."
"Indeed?"
"Mr. Stobart made a low marriage."
"What? Did he marry a woman of bad character?"
"I don't think there was anything against the young woman's_character_, my lady; but she was very low, a servant of Mrs.Stobart's, I believe, and a Methodist. John Wesley's influence wasat the bottom of it all. There's no reckoning the harm those OxfordMethodists have done in high families. Well, there's Lady Huntingdon!There's no need to say more than that."
"But how comes this gentleman to be in poor circumstances, as the _St.James's Post_ states, if his mother is rich?"
"Oh, my lady, the honourable Mrs. Stobart was quite as angry as hislordship, and she married Sir David Lanigan, an Irish baronet, whocourted her when she was a girl at Kilrush Abbey. Your ladyship wouldnotice her portrait in the long drawing-room at Kilrush."
"Yes, yes, I remember--a handsome face, with a look of his lordship.Then you have reason to believe that Mr. Stobart is living in poverty,as a consequence of his love-match?"
Her cheek crimsoned as she spoke, recalling that bitterest hour ofher life in which Kilrush had told her that he could not marry her.That inexorable pride--the pride of the name-worshippers--had darkenedt
his young man's existence, as it had darkened hers. But he, at least,had shaken off the fetters of caste, and had taken his own road tohappiness.
"Thank you, Goodwin; that is all I want to know," she said.
An hour later she was being driven to Richmond in an open carriage,with the faithful Sophy seated opposite her, in the dazzling Junesunshine. They stopped at Putney to spend half an hour with Mrs.Potter, and then drove on to the village of Sheen, and pulled up at aroadside inn, where Antonia inquired for Mr. Stobart's cottage, and wasagreeably surprised at finding her question promptly answered.
"'Tis about a mile from here, your ladyship," said the landlord,who had run out of his bar-parlour to wait upon a lady in as fine acarriage as any that passed his door on a Saturday afternoon, whencourt and fashion drove to Richmond to air themselves in the Park andplay cards at modish lodgings on the Green. "'Tis a white cottagefacing the common--the first turning on the left hand will take you toit; but 'tis a bad road for carriages."
They drove along the high road for about a quarter of a mile, betweenmarket gardens, where the asparagus beds showed green and feathery, andwhere the strawberry banks were white with blossom, under the blue skyof early June. The hedges were full of hawthorn bloom and honeysuckle,dog-roses and red campion.
"Sure, the country's a sweet place to come to for an afternoon," saidSophy, as she sniffed the purer air; "but I'm glad we live in London."
The lane was narrow and full of ruts, so Antonia alighted at theturning and sent Sophy and the carriage back to the inn to wait forher. Sophy had a volume of a novel in her reticule, and would be ableto amuse herself.
The walk gave Antonia time for quiet thought before she met the manwho might receive her as an enemy. She was going to him with nohigh-flown ideas of restitution--of surrendering a fortune that sheknew to be the bequest of love. She had accepted that heritage withoutcompunction. She had given herself to the dead, and she thought itno wrong to receive the fortune that the dead had given to her. Butif her husband's kinsman was in poor circumstances, it was her dutyto share her riches with him. She had an instinctive dislike of allprofessors of religion; but she could but admire this young man for thehumble marriage which had offended his cousin, and perhaps lost him asubstantial part of his cousin's fortune.
The lane was a long one, between untrimmed hedges that breathed thedelicate perfume of wild flowers, on one side a field of clover, astrawberry garden on the other. It was a relief to have left the dustof the high road, and the burden of Sophy's running commentary upon thehouses and carriages and people on their way. Sheen Common lay beforeher at last, an undulating expanse carpeted with short sweet turf,where the lady's-slipper wrought a golden pattern on the greyish green,and where the yellow bloom of the gorse rose and fell over the hillockyground in a dazzling perspective. Larks were singing in the midsummerblue, and behind the park wall, built when the first Charles was king,the rooks were calling amidst the darkness of forest trees. Close onher left hand as she came out of the lane, Antonia saw a cottage whichshe took for the labourer's hovel indicated in the _St. James's EveningPost_. It had been once a pair of cottages, with deeply sloping thatchand crow-step gables above end walls of red brick; but it was now onehouse in a flower-garden of about an acre, surrounded with a hedge ofroses and lavender, inside a low white paling. The plastered porch,with its broad bench and little square window, was big enough for twoor three people to sit in; the parlour casements were wide and low, andnone of the rooms could have been above seven or eight feet high; butthis humble dwelling, contemplated on the outside, had those charms ofthe picturesque and the rustic which are apt to make people forgetthat houses are meant to be lived in rather than to be looked at fromover the way.
The garden was prettier than her own old garden at Putney, Toniathought. Never had she seen so many flowers in so small a space.While she stood admiring this little paradise, out of range of thewindows, she was startled by the sound of a voice close by; and then,for the first time, she became aware of a domestic group under an oldcrab-apple tree, which was big enough to spread a shade over a youngman and woman sitting side by side on a garden bench, and a veryjuvenile nursemaid kneeling on the grass and supervising the movementsof a crawling baby.
The young man was Mr. Stobart, no doubt; and the girl who sat sewingdiligently, with bent head, and who looked hardly eighteen years ofage, must be his wife; and the baby made the natural third in thedomestic trio, the embodied grace and sanction of a virtuous marriage.
He was reading aloud from "Paradise Lost," the story of Adam and Evebefore the coming of the Tempter. He had a fine baritone voice, andgave full effect to the music of Milton's verse, reading as a man wholoves the thing he reads. In the restrictions which piety imposed uponthe choice of books, he had been over the same ground much oftener thana more libertine student would have been; and this may have accountedfor the young wife's appearance of being more interested in the hem ofher baby's petticoat than in Milton's Eve.
"A simpleton," thought Tonia. "'Tis not every man would forfeit wealthand station for such a wife. But she looks sweet-tempered, and as freefrom earthly stain as a sea-nymph."
She went on to the low wooden gate, as white as if it had been paintedyesterday, and rang a primitive kind of bell that hung on the gate-post.
The young woman laid down her sewing, and came to open the gate withthe air of doing the most natural thing in the world; but on perceivingAntonia's splendour of silver-grey lute-string and plumed hat shestopped in confusion, dropping a low curtsey before she admitted thevisitor.
Antonia thought her lovely. Those velvety brown eyes set off thedelicacy of her complexion, while the bright auburn of her unpowderedhair, which fell about her forehead and hung upon her neck in naturalcurls, gave a vivid beauty to a face that without brilliant colouringwould have meant very little. She had the exquisite freshness ofcreatures that do not think--almost without passions, quite withoutmind.
"I think you must be Mrs. Stobart," Tonia said gently. "I have come tosee your husband, if he will be good enough to receive me. I am LadyKilrush."
The timid sweetness of Mrs. Stobart's expression changed in a moment,and an angry red flamed over cheeks and brow.
"Then I'm sure I don't know what can be your ladyship's business here,unless you have come to crow over us," she said, "for I know you wasn'tinvited."
Stobart came to the gate in time to hear his wife's speech.
"Pray, my dear Lucy, let us have no ill-nature," he said, with gravedispleasure, as he opened the gate. "You see, madam, my wife has notbeen bred in the school that teaches us how to hide our feelings. Ihope your ladyship will excuse her for being too simple to be polite."
"I am sorry if she or you can think of me as an enemy," said Antonia,very coldly. She had been startled out of her friendly feeling by Mrs.Stobart's unexpected attack. "I only knew a few hours ago, from aninsolent paragraph in a newspaper, that there was any one living whocould think himself the worse for my marriage."
"Indeed, madam, I have never blamed you or Providence for that romanticincident. Will your ladyship sit under our favourite tree, where mywife and I have been sitting, or would you prefer to be within doors?"
"Oh, the garden by all means. I adore a garden; and yours is theprettiest for its size I have ever seen, except the rose-garden atKilrush Abbey, which I dare swear you know."
"My aunt's garden? Yes. I was just old enough to remember her leadingme by the hand among her rose trees. She died before my fourthbirthday, and I have never seen Kilrush House since her death."
"'Tis vastly at your service, sir, with all it can offer ofaccommodation, if ever you and your lady care to occupy it for aseason."
They were moving slowly towards the apple tree as they talked, LucyStobart hanging her head as she crept beside her husband, ashamed ofher shrewish outburst, for which she expected a lecture by-and-by, andshedding a penitential tear or two behind a corner of her muslin apron.
"We shall not trespass on your ladyship's
generosity. We have framedour lives upon a measure that would make Kilrush House out of thequestion."
"We are not rich enough to live in a great house," snapped Lucy,sinning again in the midst of her repentance.
"Say rather that we have done with the things that go with wealth andstation, and have discovered the happiness that can be found in whatfine people call poverty."
Nursemaid and baby had disappeared from the little lawn. Antonia tookthe seat Mr. Stobart indicated on the rustic bench; but her host andhis wife remained standing, Lucy puzzled as to what she ought to do,George too much troubled in mind to know what he was doing.
"Mrs. Stobart, and you, sir, pray be seated. Let us be as friendly aswe can," pleaded Antonia. "Be sure I came here in a friendly spirit.Pray be frank with me. I know nothing but what I read in the _St.James's Evening Post_. Is it true that you were once your cousin'sacknowledged heir?"
"No, madam, it is not true. I was but his lordship's nearest relation."
"And he would have inherited his lordship's fortune if he had notmarried me," said Lucy, with irrepressible vehemence. "Sure you know'twas so, George! And I can never forgive myself for having cost youa great fortune. And then Lord Kilrush must needs make a much lowermarriage--on his death-bed, to spite you, for _my_ father had neverbeen----"
Her husband clapped his hand over her lips before she could finish thesentence. Antonia started up from the bench, pale with indignation.
"Lucy, I am ashamed of you," said George. "Go indoors and play withyour baby. You do not know how to converse with a lady. I beg you toforgive her, madam, and to think of her as a pettish child, who willlearn better behaviour in time."
"I can forgive much, but not to hear it said that Kilrush had any othermotive than his love for me when he made me his wife. I loved him,sir--loved him too dearly to suffer that falsehood for an instant. No,Mrs. Stobart, don't go," as Lucy began to creep away, ashamed of hermisconduct. "You must hear why I came, and what I have to say to yourhusband. I came as a friend, and I hoped to find a friendly welcome. Icame to do justice, if justice can be done, but not to apologize for amarriage which was prompted by love, and love alone."
"Be patient with us, madam, and you may yet find us worthy of yourfriendship," said Stobart, gently. "But first of all be assured that weask nothing from your generosity. We assert no claim to justice, notconsidering ourselves wronged."
"You think differently from your wife, Mr. Stobart."
"Oh, madam, cannot you see that my wife is a wayward child, who hasnever learnt to reason? To-night, on her knees at the foot of theCross, she will shed penitential tears for her sins of pride andimpatience."
"Pray, sir, do not talk of sin. 'Twas natural, perhaps, that your wifeshould think ill of me."
"Oh, madam, 'twas for his sake only that I was angry," protested Lucy,with streaming eyes. "Satan gets the better of me when I remember thathe was disinherited for marrying me; and I thought you had come here totriumph over him. But, indeed, I covet nobody's fortune, and am contentwith this dear cottage, where I have been happier than I ever was in mylife before."
"Let us be friends, then, Mrs. Stobart," Antonia said, with agraciousness that completely subjugated the contrite Lucy, whosemurmured reply was inaudible, and who sat gazing at the visitor in arapture of admiration.
Never had Lucy's eyes beheld so handsome a woman, or such a hat, withits black ostrich feathers, clasped at the side by a diamond bucklethat flashed rainbow light in the sunshine. The glancing sheen of thepale grey gown, the long gloves drawn to the elbow under deep rufflesof Flemish lace, the diamond cross sparkling between the folds ofCyprus gauze that veiled the corsage, the _tout-ensemble_ of a finelady's toilette, filled Mrs. Stobart with wonder. Wholly unconscious ofthe impression she had made on the wife, Antonia addressed herself tothe husband with an earnest countenance.
"I am thankful to find you do not accuse Lord Kilrush of injustice,"she said. "But as his kinsman, you may naturally have expected toinherit some part of his wealth; and I therefore beg you to accept afourth share of my income, which is reckoned at twenty thousand pounds.I hope that with five thousand a year your wife will be able to enjoyall the pleasures that fortune can give."
"Oh, Georgie!" exclaimed Lucy, breathless with a rapturous surprise.
Her husband laid his hand on hers with a caressing touch.
"Hush, my dearest," he said; and then in a graver tone, "Your offer isas unexpected as it is generous, madam; but I will not take advantageof an impulse which you might afterwards regret, and of which the worldyou live in would question the wisdom. Be sure I do not envy you mykinsman's fortune. If I ever stood in the place of his heir I lost thatplace two years before he died. He told me plainly that he meant tostrike my name out of his will. I hoped for nothing, desired nothingfrom him."
"But sure, sir, nobody loves poverty. I have tasted it, and know whatit means; and since I have enjoyed all the luxuries of wealth I ownthat it would distress me to go back to the two-pair parlour of whichthe evening papers love to remind me."
"True, madam; for in your world pleasure and money are inseparableideas. When I left that world--at the call of religion--I renouncedsomething far dearer to me than fortune. I gave up a soldier's career,and the hope to serve my country, and write my name upon her registerof honourable deeds. Having made that sacrifice, I have nothing tolose, except the lives of those I love--nothing to desire for them orfor myself, except that our present happiness may continue."
"But if I assure you that your acceptance of my offer would ease myconscience----"
"Nay, madam, your conscience may rest easy in the assurance that we arecontent----"
"I do not think your wife is content, Mr. Stobart. She received me justnow as an enemy. Let me convince her that I am her friend."
"You can do that in a hundred ways, madam, without making her rich,which would be to be her enemy in disguise."
"Sure, your ladyship, I was full of sinfulness and pride when I spoketo you so uncivilly," Lucy said, in a contrite voice. "Mr. Stobart is abetter judge of all serious matters than I am. I should never be cleverif I lived to be a hundred, in spite of the pains he takes to teach me.And if he thinks we had best be poor, why, so do I; and this house is apalace compared with the hovel I lived in before he took me away frommy father and mother."
"You hear, Lady Kilrush, my wife and I are of one mind. But to provethat 'tis for no stubborn pride that I reject your generous offer, Ipromise to appeal to your kindness at any hour of need, and, further,to call upon you once in a way for those charitable works in whichthe men I most honour are engaged. There is Mr. Whitefield's AmericanOrphanage, for example----"
"Oh, command my purse, I pray you, sir. I rejoice in helping thepoor--I who have known poverty. I will send you something for yourorphans to-night. Let me assist all your good works."
"'Tis very generous of your ladyship to help us; for I doubt your ownreligious views scarcely tally with those of my friends."
"I have no religious views, Mr. Stobart. I have no religion except thelove of my fellow-creatures."
"Great Heaven, madam, have the undermining influences of a corruptsociety so early sapped your belief in Christ?"
"No, sir, society has not influenced me. I have never been a believerin Christianity as a creed, though I can admire Jesus of Nazareth as aphilanthropist, and grieve for him as a martyr to the cruelty of man.I was taught to reason, where other children are taught to believe; toquestion and to think for myself, where other children are taught to bedumb and to stifle thought."
Stobart gazed at her with horror. Mrs. Stobart listened open-mouthed,astonished at the audacity which could give speech to such opinions.
"Oh, madam, 'tis sad to hear outspoken unbelief from the lips of youth.I doubt you have suffered the influence of that pernicious writer whosepen has peopled France with infidels."
"If, sir, you mean Voltaire, you do ill to condemn the apostle oftoleration, to whom you and all other dissenters should be grateful.
"
"I scorn the championship of an infidel. I am no more a dissenter thanthe Wesleys or George Whitefield. I have not ceased to belong to theChurch of England because I follow heaven-born teachers sent to startlethat Church from a century of torpor. _They_ have not ceased to be ofthe Church because bishops disapprove their ardour and parish priestsexclude them from their pulpits."
"Oh, sir, I doubt not that you and those gentlemen are honest in yourconvictions. 'Tis my misfortune, perhaps, that I cannot think as youdo."
"If you would condescend to hear those inspired preachers you would notlong walk in the darkness that now encompasses you; for sure, madam,God meant you to be among the children of light, one of His elect,awaiting but His appointed hour for your redemption. Oh, after that newbirth, how you will hate the life that lies behind! With what tears youwill atone for your unbelief!"
His earnestness startled her. His strong voice trembled, his darkgrey eyes were clouded with tears. Could any man so concern himselfabout the spiritual welfare of a stranger? She had grown up with adeep-rooted prejudice against professing Christians. She expectednothing from religious people but harshness and injustice, self-esteemand arrogance, masked under an assumption of humility. This man talkedthe jargon she hated, but she could not doubt his sincerity.
"Alas! madam, my heart aches for you, when I consider the peril of yoursoul. With youth and beauty, wealth, the world's esteem--all Satan'schoicest lures--what safeguard, what defence have you?"
"Moi!" she answered, rising suddenly, and looking proud defiance athim, remembering that heroic monosyllable in Corneille's "Medea.""Oh, sir, it is on ourselves--on the light within, not the God in thesky--we must depend in the conflict between right and wrong. Do youthink a creed can help a man in temptation, or that the Thirty-NineArticles ever saved a sinner from falling?"
He was silent, lost in admiration at so much spirit and beauty, suchboldness and pride. His own ideal of womanly grace was gentleness,obedience, an amiable nullity; but he must needs own the triumphantcharms of this bold disputant, who was not afraid to confess an impietythat shocked him. He had known many Deists among his own sex; but thewickedest women he had met in his unregenerate days had been like thedevils that believe and tremble.
"I have stayed over long," said Antonia, resuming the easy tone oftrivial conversation, "and I have my woman waiting for me at the inn.Good day to you, Mrs. Stobart, and pray remember we are to be friends.I hope your husband will bring you to dine with me in St. James'sSquare."
"I know not if it would be wise to accept your ladyship's politeinvitation," Stobart answered, "though we are grateful for the kindnessthat inspires it. I have an inward assurance that I am safest inkeeping aloof from the world I once loved too well. My life here holdsall that is good for my soul--all that my heart can desire."
"But is your religion but a passive piety, sir? Do you follow thedoctrine of the Moravians, who abjure all active righteousness, andwait in stillness for the coming of faith? Do you do nothing forChristianity?"
"Indeed, madam, he works like a slave in doing good," protestedLucy, eagerly. "Mr. Wesley has given him a mission among the poorestwretches at Lambeth. He has set up a dispensary there, and schools forthe children, and a night class for grown men. He toils among themfor many hours three or four days a week. I tremble lest he shouldtake some dreadful fever, and come home to me only to die. He goesto the prisons, and reads to the condemned creatures, and comes homebroken-hearted at the cruelty of the law, at the sinfulness of mankind.What does he do for religion? He gives his life for it--almost as hisRedeemer did!"
"You teach me to honour him, madam, and to honour you for so generouslydefending him against my impertinence. Pray forgive me, and you too,Mr. Stobart. I have allowed myself great freedom of speech; and if youdo not return my visit I shall be sure you are offended."
"We shall not suffer you to think that, madam," Stobart answeredgravely.
He insisted on escorting her to her carriage, and in the walk ofnearly a mile they had time for conversation. He suffered himself forthat brief span to acknowledge the existence of mundane things, andtalked of Handel's oratorios, Richardson's novels, and even of Garrickand Shakespeare. He handed Lady Kilrush to her carriage, and saw herdrive away from the inn door, a radiant vision in the afternoon light,before he went back to the cottage, and the adoring young wife, and theyearling baby, and a dish of tea, and the story of Eve and the Serpent.
The next day's post brought him an enclosure of two bank bills for fivehundred pounds each, and one line in a strong and somewhat masculinepenmanship.
"For your poor of Lambeth, and for Mr. Whitefield's orphans.
"ANTONIA KILRUSH."