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True, he had been to Durnmelling not unfrequently, but that was in the other world of the country, and even there Hesper had taken no interest in the self-satisfied though not ill-bred youth who went galloping about the country, showing off to rustic girls.
She had noted him on the night of the party, and remembered having seen him at the merrymaking in the old hall of Durnmelling, but he had not been introduced to her.
"There is no communication between Durnmelling and Thornwick now. It was all ours once, though, Cousin Godfrey says. Did you notice how the great oak sends its biggest arm over our field?" "Yes." "Well, I often sit there under it, when I want to learn my lesson, and can't rest in the house; and that's how I know of the crack in the ha-ha."
The rest of the servants, both at Durnmelling and in London, were none of them very friendly with her least of all Jemima, who was now with her mistress as lady's-maid, the accomplished attendant whom Hesper had procured in place of Mary being away for a holiday.
He had of late been losing money heavily whence, in part, arose that anxiety of Lady Margaret's not to keep Mr. Redmain fretting for his lunch. The house of Durnmelling, new compared with that of Thornwick, was yet, as I have indicated, old enough to have passed also through vicissitudes, and a large portion of the original structure had for many years been nothing better than a ruin.
Any arrangement of the kind had been impossible at Durnmelling, where there was no money; and here, where it would have been easy enough, she judged it better to give no hint in its direction, although plainly it had never suggested itself to Hesper. There was nothing of the money-mean in her, any more than in her husband.
At the top she turned to bid him good night, but there he was, close behind her, insisting on seeing her safe to the house. "Is this the way you always come?" asked Tom. "I never was on Durnmelling land before," answered Letty. "How did you find the short-cut, then?" he asked. "It certainly does not look as if it were much used." "Of course not," replied Letty.
What a handsome couple they make!" What passed between them is scarcely worthy of record. It is enough to say that Sepia found her companion distrait, and he felt her a little invasive. In a short while they came back together, and Sepia saw Letty under the great bough of the Durnmelling oak. Godfrey handed her down the rent, careful himself not to invade Durnmelling with a single foot.
In the hands of Godfrey's father, by a continuity of judicious cares, and a succession of partial resurrections, it had been restored to something like its original modest dignity. Durnmelling, too, had in part sunk into ruin, and had been but partially recovered from it; still, it swelled important beside its antecedent Thornwick.
For all he had gone through, Godfrey was not yet less than courteous to ladies. He assured Miss Yolland that Thornwick was as much at her service as if it were a part of Durnmelling. "Though, indeed," he added, with a smile, "it would be more correct to say, 'as if Durnmelling were a part of Thornwick' for that was the real state of the case once upon a time."
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