Not to go into the house, though Mr. and Mrs. Osbaldistone
had begged her to name her own time for revisiting it when they and their
family would be absent, but to see all the gardens and grounds once more;
a solemn, miserable visit, which, because of the very misery it involved,
appeared to Ellinor to be an imperative duty.
Dixon and she talked together as she sat making a catalogue one evening
in the old low-browed library; the casement windows were open into the
garden, and the May showers had brought out the scents of the new-leaved
sweetbriar bush just below. Beyond the garden hedge the grassy meadows
sloped away down to the liver; the Parsonage was so much raised that,
sitting in the house, you could see over the boundary hedge. Men with
instruments were busy in the meadow. Ellinor, pausing in her work, asked
Dixon what they were doing.
"Them's the people for the new railway," said he. "Nought would satisfy
the Hamley folk but to have a railway all to themselves--coaches isn't
good enough now-a-days."
He spoke with a tone of personal offence natural to a man who had passed
all his life among horses, and considered railway-engines as their
despicable rivals, conquering only by stratagem.
By-and-by Ellinor passed on to a subject the consideration of which she
had repeatedly urged upon Dixon, and entreated him to come and form one
of their household at East Chester.
Pages:
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202