“And much your papa would care for your permission,” said Mrs. Sam Hurst. “But so far I agree with you, Janey, that before he has pupils, or anything of that sort, there ought to be a lady in the house. He should marry—”
“Marry! we don’t want a lady in the house,” cried Janey, “we are ladies ourselves, I hope. Marry! if he does, I, for one, will do all I can to make his life miserable,” said the girl with energy. “What should he want to marry for when he has daughters grown up? There are enough of us already, I should think.”
“Too many,” said Mrs. Sam Hurst with a sigh. It gave her the greatest secret delight to play upon the girl’s fears.
Besides this, however, Ursula had another preoccupation. In that cordial meeting with the young lady who had turned out to be a person in such an embarrassing position, there had been a great deal said about future meetings, walks, and expeditions together, and Ursula had been very desirous that Phoebe should fix some time for their first encounter. She thought of this now with blushes that seemed to burn her cheeks. She was afraid to go out, lest she should meet the girl she had been so anxious to make a friend of. Not that, on her own account, after the first shock, Ursula would have been hard-hearted enough to deny her acquaintance to Tozer’s granddaughter. In the seclusion of her chamber, she had cried over the downfall of her ideal friend very bitterly, and felt the humiliation for Phoebe more cruelly than that young lady felt it for herself; but Ursula, however much it might have cost her, would have stood fast to her friendship had she been free to do as she pleased.
“I did not like her for her grandfather,” she said to Janey, of whom, in this case, she was less unwilling to make a confidant. “I never thought of the grandfather. What does it matter to me if he were a sweep instead of old Tozer?”
“Old Tozer is just as bad as if he were a sweep,” said Janey; “if you had ever thought of her grandfather, and known he was old Tozer, you would have felt it would not do.”
“What is there about a grandfather? I don’t know if we ever had any,” said Ursula. “Mamma had, for the Dorsets are her relations—but papa. Mr. Griffiths’s grandfather was a candlemaker; I have heard papa say so—and they go everywhere.”
“But he is dead,” said Janey, with great shrewdness, “and he was rich.”
“You little nasty calculating thing! Oh, how I hate rich people; how I hate this horrid world, that loves money and loves fine names, and does not care for people’s selves whether they are bad or good! I shall never dare to walk up Grange Lane again,” said Ursula, with tears. “Fancy changing to her, after being so glad to see her! fancy never saying another word about the skating, or the walk to the old mill! How she will despise me for being such a miserable creature! and she will think it is all my own fault.”
At this moment Mr. May, from the door of his study, called “Ursula!” repeating the call with some impatience when she paused to dry her eyes. She ran down to him quickly, throwing down her work in her haste. He was standing at the door, and somehow for the first time the worn look about his eyes struck Ursula with a touch of pity. She had never noticed it before: a look of suppressed pain and anxiety, which remained about his eyes though the mouth smiled. It had never occurred to her to be sorry for her father before, and the idea struck her as very strange now.
“Come in,” he said, “I want to speak to you. I have been thinking about the young woman—this friend of yours. We are all among the Dissenters nowadays, whatever Mrs. Sam Hurst may say. You seem to have taken a fancy to this Tozer girl?”
“Don’t call her so, papa, please. She is a lady in herself, as good a lady as anyone.”
“Well! I don’t say anything against her, do I? So you hold by your fancy? You are not afraid of Grange Lane and Mrs. Sam Hurst.”
“I have not seen her again,” said Ursula, cast down. “I have not been out at all. I could not bear to be so friendly one day, and then to pass as if one did not know her the next. I cannot do it,” cried the girl, in tears; “if I see her, I must just be the same as usual to her, whatever you say.”
“Very well, be the same as usual,” said Mr. May; “that is why I called you. I have my reasons. Notwithstanding Tozer, be civil to the girl. I have my reasons for what I say.”
“Do you mean it, papa!” said Ursula, delighted. “Oh, how good of you! You don’t mind—you really don’t mind? Oh! I can’t tell you how thankful I am; for to pretend to want to be friends, and then to break off all in a moment because of a girl’s grandfather—”
“Don’t make a principle of it, Ursula. It is quite necessary, in an ordinary way, to think of a girl’s grandfather—and a boy’s too, for that matter. No shopkeeping friends for me; but in this individual case I am willing to make an exception. For the moment, you see, Dissenters are in the ascendant. Young Copperhead is coming next week. Now, go.”
Ursula marched delighted upstairs. “Janey, run and get your hat,” she said; “I am going out. I am not afraid of anyone now. Papa is a great deal nicer than he ever was before. He says I may see Miss Beecham as much as I like. He says we need not mind Mrs. Sam
