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She looked at him in utter disdain. She did not believe him; it was only a ruse to attract her. "How do you know," she asked fiercely, "what ideas I could have had or not before I went to the Rexfords?" "That's a part of what I was going to say next" she sat down again "but I don't want to hurt you, mind. I'd make it real easy for you if you'd let me cherish you." "What have you to say?"
"Now," said Miss Bennett, calling upon Miss Rexford, "there will be a few people to talk to, and we shall see a little life. These people are really a very good sort; you'll begin to have some enjoyment." The Rexfords had indeed been advertised more than once of the advantage that would accrue to them from the coming of the town-folks, and this chiefly by Trenholme himself.
"She's young, I know; but now, if you see her walking about the dining-room, she's more like a queen than a gurl." Without inquiring into the nature of this distinction Dr. Nash got into his buggy. As he drove down the street under the arching elm trees he soon passed Eliza on her way to the Rexfords, and again he lifted his hat. Eliza, with grave propriety, returned the salutation.
You'll be sorry, you may believe, if you don't cast a more favourable eye toward me." She did not reply, so he continued urging. "If it's because you're stuck up, it must have been those poor English Rexfords put it into your head, for you couldn't have had such ideas before you came here.
Now the Rexfords, man, woman, and child, had come with brave hearts, intending to work and to economise; yet they found what was actually required of them different from all that their fancy had pictured; and their courage, not being obliged to face those dangers to which they had adjusted it, and being forced to face much to which it was not adjusted, suffered shock, and took a little time to rally into moderate animation.
"Do not ask me to tell you how low we Rexfords have descended!" she cried, "and yet I will confess I did it with the meat axe. I ought not to touch such a thing, you think! Nay, what can I do when the loin is not jointed and the servant has not so steady a hand as I? Would you have me let papa grumble all dinner-time the way that you men do, you know?"
Principal Trenholme came himself to solicit the attendance of the Miss Rexfords; but Sophia, promising for Blue and Red, pleaded lack of time for herself. "And I wish your scheme success," cried she, "but I need not wish you pleasure since, as on all such occasions, you will 'sit attentive to your own applause."
Either their neighbours, if better off, had not long ago begun as meagrely, or else they lacked those advantages of culture or social standing which the Rexfords could boast. Such are the half conscious refuges of our egotism. But with the introduction of this new element it was different.
Nash, and he, looking at Eliza, recognised in a dull way something in her appearance which made him think her a finer woman than he had formerly supposed, and, pulling off his hat, he made her a stiff bow. Eliza spoke only to Mr. Hutchins: "I shall be gone about four hours; I am going to the Rexfords to tea. You'd better look into the dining-room once or twice when supper's on."
It was very occasionally that the pride of him came to the surface, and then chiefly when animated by the memory of the time when he had been at a disadvantage in worldly things. Such memories came to him when he prepared to go to the railway station to meet the Rexfords.
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