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Updated: May 1, 2025
At the door he seemed wishful enough to enter; but Mrs. Ianson invariably looked very coldly upon Sunday visitors. And something questioning and questionable in the glances of both that lady and her daughter was very painful to Miss Bowen. "Not to-day," she whispered, as her lover detained her hand. "To-morrow I shall have made all clear to the Iansons." "As you will!
Thornycroft, doubtless wishing to be complimentary. "I think he does," said Agatha, kindly, for she was struck by the infinitely sweet and "good" expression which the young man's face just then wore. "He looks like the Nathanael of Scripture, 'in whom there was no guile." A pause for the Iansons were those sort of religious people who think any Biblical allusions irreverent.
She was sitting with Jane Ianson, near whom, partly in shy fear, partly from a vague desire for womanly sympathy, she had closely kept for the last hour. As yet, the Iansons knew nothing. She wondered whether from his manner or hers they would be likely to guess what had passed that morning between herself and Mr. Harper.
So, whether from the spice of malice in her composition she wished to disappoint the polite inquisitiveness of the Iansons, or whether from more generous reasons of her own, Miss Bowen left her letter unopened until the meal was done; when, carelessly taking it up, she adjourned to her own sitting-room.
Now, in her bitterness against him, his gaiety was positively offensive to her. She rose, and proposed that they should quit her own private room for the general drawing-room of the family. The Iansons were all there, even the Doctor being prone to linger in his dull home for the pleasure of Major Harper's delightful company.
It was an infinite relief to her when following, nay preceding, Nathanael, there appeared his elder brother, with the old pleasant smile and bow. But amidst all his assumed manner, Major Harper took occasion to whisper kindly to Agatha; "My brother made me come I shall do admirably to talk nonsense to the Iansons."
Agatha's smile had in it something even of shy tenderness when at the church-door she was met by Mr. Harper. And when, after speaking courteously to the Iansons, he came, quite naturally as it were, to her side, and drew her arm in his, she felt a strange sense of calm and rest in knowing that it was her betrothed husband upon whom she leant.
All laughed at the anecdote, and the Iansons looked with additional respect on the man who thus carelessly counted his grandfathers up to the Commonwealth. But Mrs. Ianson's curiosity penetrated even to the Harpers of Queen Victoria's day. "Indeed we can't let you two gentlemen away so early.
She dried the tears that were scorching her eyes, and mechanically took up her letter; until, remembering how long she had been upstairs, and how all that time Emma's transparent disposition and love of talk might have laid her and her whole affairs open before the Iansons, she quickly put the epistle in her pocket unread, and went down into the dining-room.
"Really, we are indulging our friends with our whole genealogy uncles, aunts, and collateral branches included which cannot be very interesting to Mrs. and Miss Ianson, or even to Miss Bowen, however kindly she may be disposed towards the Harper family." The Iansons here made polite disclaimers, but Agatha said nothing.
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