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Updated: July 31, 2024
There was very little squalor or degradation; their poverty seemed not a descent, but a condition to which they had been born; the faces which Sadie saw were dulled and apathetic rather than sullen or rebellious; they stood up when Miss Amelyn entered, paying HER the deference, but taking little note of the pretty butterfly who was with her, or rather submitting to her frank curiosity with that dull consent of the poor, as if they had lost even the sense of privacy, or a right to respect.
"I think you have mistaken me for some one else," she said hurriedly, yet wondering why she had admitted it, and even irritated at the admission. "I am a stranger here, a visitor at the Priory. I called with Miss Amelyn at your cottage, and saw your other granddaughter; that's how I knew your name." The old man's face changed.
The trouble in the young girl's face was unmistakable, and as it suited Miss Desborough's purpose just as well to show her independence by returning, as she had set out, alone, she consented to go. Miss Amelyn showed her a short cut across the park, and they separated to meet at dinner.
"He'd be too delighted," said Miss Amelyn, with disaster written all over her girlish, truthful face, "but but you know it really wouldn't be quite right to Lord Beverdale. You're his principal guest you know, and they'd think I had taken you off." "Well," said Miss Desborough impetuously, "what's the matter with that inn the Red Lion? We can get a sandwich there, I guess. I'm not VERY hungry."
Why else this inherited conscientious reverence for Lord Beverdale's position, shown by Miss Amelyn, which she, an American alive to its practical benefits, could not understand? Would Miss Amelyn and Lord Algernon have made a better match?
Debs was not at home. But his granddaughter was there, who, after a preliminary "bob," continued the stirring of the pot before the fire in tentative silence. "I am sorry to find that your grandfather has gone to work again in spite of the doctor's orders," said Miss Amelyn.
But she only said, however, "The village will do," and gayly took her companion's arm. "But I'm afraid you'll find it very uninteresting, for I am going to visit some poor cottages," persisted Miss Amelyn, with a certain timid ingenuousness of manner which, however, was as distinct as Miss Desborough's bolder frankness. "I promised the rector's daughter to take her place to-day."
"There's a wonderful old man lives here," said Miss Amelyn, as they halted before a stone and thatch cottage quite on the outskirts of the village. "We can't call him one of our poor, for he still works, although over eighty, and it's his pride to keep out of the poorhouse, and, as he calls it, 'off' the hands of his granddaughters.
She had been called "my dear" by one or two dowagers, and by her Christian name by the earl, and had a way of impalpably melting out of sight at times. These trifles led Miss Desborough to conclude that she was some kind of dependent or poor relation. Here was an opportunity to begin her work of "doing good." She quickened her pace and overtook Miss Amelyn.
These poor people here are not very bad, and are not at all extraordinary." "Never mind," said Sadie, hurrying her along. After a pause she went on, "You know the Priory very well, I guess?" "I lived there when I was a little girl, with my aunt, the Dowager Lady Beverdale," said Miss Amelyn.
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