“Reginald, you ought not to swear,” said Ursula. “It is dreadfully wicked in a clergyman. Poor papa meant making a little more money. What else could he mean? And I think it is very good of him, for it will bother him most. Mr. Copperhead is very nice, Reginald. I saw him in London, you know. I thought he was very ⸻.”
“Ah! oh!” said Reginald, “I forgot that. You met him in London? To be sure, and it was there you met Miss Beecham. I begin to see. Is he coming here after her, I should like to know? She doesn’t look the sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing.”
“The sort of girl to encourage that sort of thing! How strangely you talk when you get excited: isn’t that rather vulgar? I don’t know if he is coming after Miss Beecham or not,” said Ursula, who thought the suggestion uncalled for, “but in a very short time you can judge for yourself.”
“Ah—indignation!” said the big brother, who like most big brothers laughed at Ursula’s exhibition of offended dignity; “and, by the way, Miss Beecham—you have not seen her since that night when she was sent for. Will not she think it strange that you never sent to inquire?”
“I sent Betsey—”
“But if Miss Beecham had been somebody else, you would have gone yourself,” he said, being in a humour for finding fault. “If poor old Mrs. Tozer had been what you call a lady—”
“I thought you were much more strong than I am against the Dissenters?” said Ursula, “ever since that man’s speech; and, indeed, always, as long as I can recollect.”
“She is not a mere Dissenter,” said Reginald. “I think I shall call as I go home. She is the cleverest girl I ever met; not like one of you bread-and-butter girls, though she is not much older than you. A man finds a girl like that worth talking to,” said the young clergyman, holding himself erect. Certainly Reginald had not improved; he had grown ever so much more self-important since he got a living of his own.
“And if I was to say, ‘Mind, I won’t have it, Reginald?’ ” cried Ursula, half-laughing, half-angry. “I think that is a great deal worse than a pupil. But Miss Beecham is very dignified, and you may be sure she will not think much of a call from you. Heaven be praised! that is one thing you can’t get into your hands; we girls are always good for something there. Men may think themselves as grand as they please,” said Ursula, “but their visits are of no consequence; it is ladies of the family who must call!” After this little outbreak, she came down at once to her usual calm. “I will ask Cousin Anne what I ought to do; I don’t think Miss Beecham wanted me to go then—”
“I shall go,” said Reginald, and he left Ursula in her father’s keeping, who met them at the station, and went off at once, with a pleasant sense of having piqued her curiosity, to Grange Lane.
It was still early, for the trains which stopped at the little country station next to the Hall were very few and inconvenient, and the sun, though setting, was still shining red from over St. Roque’s upon Grange Lane. The old red walls grew redder still in the frosty night, and the sky began to bloom into great blazing patches of colour upon the wintry clearness of the blue. There was going to be a beautiful sunset, and such a thing was always to be seen from Grange Lane better than anywhere else in Carlingford. Reginald went down the road slowly, looking at it, and already almost forgetting his idea of calling on Miss Beecham. To call on Miss Beecham would be to call on old Tozer, the butterman, to whom alone the visit would be naturally paid; and this made him laugh within himself. So he would have passed, no doubt, without the least attempt at intruding on the privacy of the Tozers, had not the garden-door opened before he got so far, and Phoebe herself came out, with her hands in her muff, to take a little walk up and down as she did daily. She did not take her hand out of its warm enclosure to give it to him; but nodded with friendly ease in return to his salutation.
“I have come out to see the sunset,” said Phoebe; “I like a little air before the day is over, and grandmamma, when she is poorly, likes her room to be very warm.”
“I hope Mrs. Tozer is better. I hope you have not been anxious.”
“Oh, no! it is chronic; there is no danger. But she requires a great deal of attendance; and I like to come out when I can. Oh, how fine it is! what colour! I think, Mr. May, you must have a spécialité for sunsets at Carlingford. I never saw them so beautiful anywhere else.”
“I am glad there is something you like in Carlingford.”
“Something! there is a very great deal; and that I don’t like too,” she said with a smile. “I don’t care for the people I am living among, which is dreadful. I don’t suppose you have ever had such an experience, though you must know a great deal more in other ways than I. All the people that come to inquire about grandmamma are very kind; they are as good as possible; I respect them, and all that,
