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Updated: May 23, 2025
Half-past eight had meant half-past eight, and she ought to have known that this would be so in a house so upright as that of Mrs Stumfold. That lady met her at the door, and smiling blandly, but, perhaps I might be permitted to say, not so blandly as she might have smiled conducted the stranger to a seat.
When at this moment Mr Stumfold offered her his arm to conduct her through the folding doors, this condescension on his part almost confounded her. The other ladies knew that he always did so to a newcomer, and therefore thought less of it. No other gentleman took any other lady, but she was led up to a special seat, a seat of honour as it were, at the left hand side of a huge silver kettle.
I know no man who works harder in the vineyard than Stumfold. But he always works with a smile on his face. And why not, Miss Mackenzie? when you think of it, why not?" "I dare say it's best not to be unhappy," said Miss Mackenzie. She did not speak till she perceived that he had paused for her answer. "Of course we know that this world can make no one happy.
When it was repeated, she found herself obliged to speak. "Mrs Stumfold, I do not know that you have any right to ask me such a question as that." "No right! No right to ask a lady who sits under Mr Stumfold whether or not she is engaged to Mr Stumfold's own curate! Think again of what you are saying, Miss Mackenzie!"
"She does it always," said an admiring lady in an audible whisper from the other side of Miss Baker. "She does it always." The admiring lady was the wife of a retired coachbuilder, who was painfully anxious to make her way into good evangelical society at Littlebath. "Perhaps you will put in the sugar for yourself," said Mrs Stumfold to Miss Mackenzie as soon as she returned.
When, however, she insisted much upon this fact of her humanity, the coachmaker's wife would shake her head, and at last stamp her foot in anger, swearing that though everybody was of course dust, and grass, and worms; and though, of course, Mrs Stumfold must, by nature, be included in that everybody; yet dust, and grass, and worms nowhere exhibited themselves with so few of the stains of humanity on them as they did within the bosom of Mrs Stumfold.
If she did she would be thereby committing herself to what Miss Todd had profanely called the broad way. In such case any advance in the Stumfold direction would be forbidden to her. But if she did not call on Miss Todd, then she would have plainly declared that she intended to be such another disciple as Miss Baker, and from that decision there would be no recall.
She had still been honoured with Mrs Stumfold's card of invitation, and had still gone to the tea-parties on Miss Baker's strenuously-urged advice; but Mrs Stumfold had frowned, and Miss Mackenzie had felt the frown; Mrs Stumfold had frowned, and the retired coachbuilder's wife had at once snubbed the culprit, and Mr Maguire had openly expressed himself to be uneasy.
And yet on the spur of the moment she could not think what words might be appropriate for her answer. She sat silent, therefore, and Mrs Stumfold again went on.
For grasp of intellect, for depth of thought, for tenderness of sentiment perhaps you mightn't have expected that, but there it is for tenderness of sentiment, for strength of faith, for purity of life, for genial hospitality, and all the domestic duties, Mrs Stumfold has no equal in Littlebath, and perhaps few superiors elsewhere."
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