“This is more than mortal can stand,” he said, making as though he would have gone away. Then he changed his mind, for, after all, he was the chaperon of his motherless girl. “Get me the paper, Ursula,” he said. It would be hard to tell with what feelings Northcote contemplated him. He was the father of Ursula, yet he dared to order her about, to bring the tears to her eyes. Northcote darted the same way as she was going, and caught at the paper on a side-table, and brought it hastily. But alas, that was last week’s paper! he did not save her the trouble, but he brought upon himself a gleam of mischief from her father’s eyes. “Mr. Northcote thinks me a tyrant to send you for the paper,” he said, as he took it out of her hands. “Thank him for his consideration. But he was not always so careful of your peace of mind,” he added, with a laugh.
Ursula looked at him with a wondering question in her eyes; but those tears were no longer there which had gone to Northcote’s heart.
“I don’t know what papa means,” she said, softly; and then, “I want to beg your pardon, please. I was very silly. Will you try to forget it, and not tell anyone, Mr. Northcote? The truth was, I thought I had done them nicely, and I was vexed. It was very childish,” she said, shaking her head with something of the same moisture floating back over the lustre in her pretty eyes.
“I will never tell anyone, you may be sure,” said the young man; but Ursula did not notice that he declined to give the other pledge, for Reginald came up just then with wrath in his eyes.
“Is that idiot going to fiddle all night?” he cried (poor Clarence had scarcely begun); “as if anybody wanted to hear him and his tweedle-dees. Miss Beecham plays like St. Cecilia, Ursula; and I want to speak to her about something. Can’t you get that brute beguiled away?”
Clarence was the one who was de trop in the little party; but he fiddled beatifically, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, without the slightest suspicion of the fact, while Phoebe accompanied him, with little smiles at her friends, and shrugs of her shoulders. Reginald felt very strongly, though for the first time, that she was over doing the Scriptural maxim of being all things to all men.
XXX
Society at the Parsonage
After this dinner-party, such as it was, the Parsonage became gradually the centre of a little society, such as sometimes forms in the most accidental way in a house where there are young men and young women, and of which no one can say what momentous results may arise. They came together fortuitously, blown to one centre by the merest winds of circumstance, out of circles totally different and unlike. Why it was that Mr. May, so good a Churchman, permitted two people so entirely out of his sphere to become his habitual guests and the companions of his children was very perplexing to the outside world, who half in mere surprise, and a little in despite, wondered and commented till they were tired, or till they had become so familiar with the strange spectacle that it ceased to strike them. A rich pupil might be forgiven for being a Dissenter, indeed in Carlingford as elsewhere money made up for most deficiencies; but even natural complacency towards the rich pupil scarcely accounted for the reception of the others. The neighbours could never be quite sure whether the family at the Parsonage knew or did not know that their new friend Northcote was not only acting as Minister of Salem Chapel, but was the assailant of Reginald May at the Anti-Establishment Meeting, and various persons in Grange Lane held themselves for a long time on the tiptoe of preparation, ready to breathe to Mr. May the painful intelligence, in case he was unaware of it. But he never gave them the opportunity. Honestly, he had forgotten the speaker’s name at first, and only recognized him when he was introduced by young Copperhead; and then the situation was piquant and amused him, especially the evident confusion and consternation of the culprit when found out.
“I don’t know what he thinks he has done to you,” said Clarence, “I could scarcely make him come in. He says he is sure you can’t wish to see him.”
This was two days after the dinner, when Horace Northcote came to leave a respectful card, hoping that he might see Ursula at a door or window. Clarence had seized upon him and dragged him in, in spite of himself.
“On the contrary, I am very glad to see him,” said Mr. May, with a smile. He looked at the young Dissenter with a jeer in his eyes. He liked to punish him, having suddenly perceived that this jeer was much more potent than any serious penalty. “If he will promise not to slay me, I shan’t quarrel with him.” Mr. May was in such good spirits at this moment that he could afford to joke; his own magnanimity, and the other’s confused looks of guilt, overcame
