“Perhaps he is coming here to see Miss Wanless,” Alice had said to herself. And in the course of that week she found that her surmise was correct. John Rossiter stayed only one night at the parsonage, and then went over to Brook Park where lived Sir Walter Wanless and all the Wanlesses. The parson had not so declared when he told Alice that his son was coming, but John himself said on his arrival that this was a special visit made to Brook Park, and not to Beetham. It had been promised for the last three months, though only fixed lately. He took the trouble to come across to the doctor’s house with the express purpose of explaining the fact. “I suppose you have always been intimate with them,” said Mrs. Dugdale, who was sitting with Alice and a little crowd of the children round them. There was a tone of sarcasm in the words not at all hidden. “We all know that you are a great deal finer than we mere village folk. We don’t know the Wanlesses, but of course you do. You’ll find yourself much more at home at Brook Park than you can in such a place as this.” All that, though not spoken, was contained in the tone of the lady’s speech.

“We have always been neighbours,” said John Rossiter.

“Neighbours ten miles off!” said Mrs Dugdale.{334}

“I dare say the Good Samaritan lived thirty miles off,” said Alice.

“I don’t think distance has much to do with it,” said the Major.

“I like my neighbours to be neighbourly. I like Beetham neighbours,” said Mrs. Dugdale. There was a reproach in every word of it. Mrs. Dugdale had heard of Miss Georgiana Wanless, and Major Rossiter knew that she had done so. After her fashion the lady was accusing him for deserting Alice.

Alice understood it also, and yet it behoved her to hold herself well up and be cheerful. “I like Beetham people best myself,” she said, “but then it is because I don’t know any other. I remember going to Brook Park once, when there was a party of children, a hundred years ago, and I thought it quite a paradise. There was a profusion of strawberries by which my imagination has been troubled ever since. You’ll just be in time for the strawberries, Major Rossiter.” He had always been John till quite lately,—John with the memories of childhood; but now he had become Major Rossiter.

She went out into the garden with him for a moment as he took his leave,—not quite alone, as a little boy of two years old was clinging to her hand. “If I had my way,” she said, “I’d have my neighbours everywhere,—at any distance. I envy a man chiefly for that.”

“Those one loves best should be very near, I think.{335}”

“Those one loves best of all? Oh yes, so that one may do something. It wouldn’t do not to have you every day, would it, Bobby?” Then she allowed the willing little urchin to struggle up into her arms and to kiss her, all smeared as was his face with bread-and-butter.

“Your mother meant to say that I was running away from my old friends.”

“Of course she did. You see, you loom so very large to us here. You are—such a swell, as Dick says, that we are a little sore when you pass us by. Everybody likes to be bowed to by royalty. Don’t you know that? Brook Park is, of course, the proper place for you; but you don’t expect but what we are going to express our little disgusts and little prides when we find ourselves left behind!” No words could have less declared her own feelings on the matter than those she was uttering; but she found herself compelled to laugh at him, lest, in the other direction, something of tenderness might escape her, whereby he might be injured worse than by her raillery. In nothing that she might say could there be less of real reproach to him than in this.

“I hate that word ‘swell,’” he said.

“So do I.”

“Then why do you use it?”

“To show you how much better Brook Park is than Beetham. I am sure they don’t talk about swells at Brook Park.”

“Why do you throw Brook Park in my teeth?{336}”

“I feel an inclination to make myself disagreeable to-day. Are you never like that?”

“I hope not.”

“And then I am bound to follow up what poor dear mamma began. But I won’t throw Brook Park in your teeth. The ladies I know are very nice. Sir Walter Wanless is a little grand;—isn’t he?”

“You know,” said he, “that I should be much happier here than there.”

“Because Sir Walter is so grand?”

“Because my friends here are dearer friends. But still it is right that I should go. One cannot always be where one would be happiest.”

“I am happiest with Bobby,” said she; “and I can always have Bobby.” Then she gave him her hand at the gate, and he went down to the parsonage.

That night Mrs. Rossiter was closeted for awhile with her son before they both went to bed. She was supposed, in Beetham, to be of a higher order of intellect,—of a higher stamp generally,—than her husband or daughter, and to be in that respect nearly on a par with her son. She had not travelled as he had done, but she was of an ambitious mind and had thoughts beyond Beetham. The poor dear parson cared for little outside the bounds of his parish. “I am so glad you are going to stay for awhile over at Brook Park,” she said.

“Only for three days.”

“In the intimacy of a house three days is a lifetime. Of course I do not like to interfere.” When this was{337} said the Major frowned, knowing well that his mother was going to interfere. “But I cannot help thinking how much a connection with the Wanlesses would do for you.”

“I don’t want anything from any connection.”

“That is all very well, John, for a man to say; but in truth we all depend on connections one with another. You are beginning the world.”

“I don’t know about that, mother.”

“To my eyes you are. Of course, you look upwards.”

“I take all that as it comes.”

“No doubt; but still you must have it in your mind to rise. A man is assisted very much by the kind of wife he marries. Much would be done for a son-in-law of Sir Walter Wanless.”

“Nothing, I hope, ever for me on that score. To succeed by favour is odious.”

“But even to rise by merit, so much outside assistance is often necessary! Though you will assuredly deserve all that you will ever get, yet you may be more likely to get it as a son-in-law to Sir Walter Wanless than if you were married to some obscure girl. Men who make the most of themselves in the world do think of these things. I am the last woman in the world to recommend my boy to look after money in marriage.”

“The Miss Wanlesses will have none.&rd............