When they stopped at the door of Kaley’s, the great shop of Redborough, and half-a-dozen obsequious attendants started out to devote themselves to the lightest suggestion of the great Miss Vernon, Mrs. John cleared up, and enjoyed the reflected distinction to the bottom of her heart; but Hester, pale and furious, compelled to sit there as part of the pageant, could scarcely keep still, and was within an ace of jumping out of the carriage and dragging her mother after her, so indignant was she, so humiliated. Cousin Catherine threw a little fichu of black lace into the girl’s lap, with a careless, liberal, “You want something for your neck, Hester,” which the girl would have thrown at her had she dared; and it would not have taken much to wind her up to that point of daring: but Mrs. John went home quite pleased with her outing. “It was a melancholy pleasure, to be sure,” she said. “All those places I used to know so well before you were born, Hester—and Kaley’s, where I used to spend so much money. But, after all, it is a pleasure to come back among the people that know you. Mr. Kaley was so very civil; did you notice? I think he paid more attention to me even than to Catherine; of course he remembered that as long as I was well off I always used to go there for everything. It was very sad, but I am glad to have done it. And then Catherine was so kind. Let me see that pretty lace thing she gave you? It is exactly what you wanted. You must be sure to put it on when we go there tomorrow to luncheon.” Hester would have liked to tear it in pieces and throw it in Miss Vernon’s face; but her mother regarded everything from a very different point of view.
Catherine Vernon, on her side, talked a great deal to Edward that evening of the comical scene, and how she could not get the advantage of poor Mrs. John’s little minauderies because of that child with her two big eyes. “I was afraid to stir for her. I scarcely dared to say a word. I expected every moment to be called to give an account of myself,” she said. It added very much to her enjoyment of all the humours of her life that she had this companion to tell them to. He was her confidant, and heard everything with the tenderest interest and a great many amusing comments of his own. Certainly in this one particular at least her desire to be of use to her relations had met with a rich reward. No son was ever more attentive to his mother: and all his habits were so nice and good. A young man who gets up to botanise in the morning, who will sit at home at night, who has no evil inclinations—how delightful he is to the female members of his family, and with what applause and gratitude they repay him for his goodness! And Miss Vernon felt the force of that additional family bond which arises from the fact that all the interests of the household, different as their age and pursuits may be, are the same. Nothing that concerned the one but must have an interest for the other. Perhaps Edward did not speak so much about himself, or even about the business, which was naturally of the first interest to her, as he might have done, but she had scarcely as yet found this out: and certainly he entered into all she told him on her side with the most confidential fullness. “The Vernonry has always been as good as a comedy,” she said. “I have to be so cautious not to offend them. And I must be on my p’s and q’s with this little girl. There is a great deal of fun to be got out of her; but we must keep it strictly to ourselves.”
“Oh, strictly!” said Edward, with a curious little twist about the corners of his mouth. He had not told the story of his own encounter with the new subject of amusement, which was strange; but he was a young man who kept his own counsel, having his own fortune to make, as had been impressed upon him from his birth.
There were only two other members of the Vernon community with whom the strangers had not yet made acquaintance (for as has been already said Mrs. Reginald Vernon, the young widow who was altogether wrapped up in her four children, and old Captain and Mrs. Morgan on the west side of the Vernonry scarcely
