Barbara had quite as much liberty as was good. Her home was a terribly dull place to her and therefore she was at Mortgrange as much as she pleased. Theodora Lestrange had taken a fancy to her, sir Wilton was charmed with her, and lady Ann—for her own reasons—had little to say against her.

Arthur was fascinated by her grace and playfulness, though he declared he would as soon think of marrying a humming-bird as Barbara. He tried for a while to throw his net over her, for he would fain have tamed her to come at his call. But before very long he arrived at the conclusion that nothing could tame her, at least not until she grew up a little more. She was a fine creature, he said, but hardly a woman yet. And he preferred a woman to a fairy!

But such was the report of her riches that both sir Wilton and lady Ann were ready to welcome her as a daughter-in-law. Sir Wilton was delighted with her gaiety and the sharp readiness of her clever tongue. All he regretted in her lack of an English education was that her speech was not quite that of a lady—on which point sir Wilton had not always been so fastidious. As for her intellectual development, that was of so little interest to him that he never suspected Barbara of having more than a usual share of intellect to develop. She was just the wife for the future baronet, he was once heard to say—though how he came once to say it I cannot think, for never before had he betrayed a consciousness that he would not be the present baronet for ever and ever. So long as he did not feel the approach of death, he would never think of dying, and then he would do his best to forget it.

But he seemed sometimes to begrudge his son the dainty little wife Barbara would make him. “The rascal will be the envy of all the clubs!” he said.

— Nine —

Mrs. Wylder

Mr. Wylder was lord of the manor and chief landowner in the parish next to that in which Mortgrange lay, though his family had never been the most influential. He was not much fitted to be an English squire. He wanted to stand well in the eyes of his neighbours, but lacked geniality. Proud of his family, he had the peculiar fault of arrogance, with its accompanying incapacity for putting oneself in the place of another.

Mr. Wylder possessed a huge inability of conceiving the manner in which what he did or said affected the person to whom he did or said it. So entirely was he thus disqualified for social interchange, that he remained supremely satisfied in his consequent isolation, hardly recognized it, and never doubted himself a perfect gentleman. Had any diffidence enabled him to perceive the reflection of himself in the mirroring minds of those around him, his self-opinion might have been troubled. But when he did begin to discover that the neighbours did not desire his company, he set it down to stupid prejudice against him because he had been so long absent from the country. He did not hunt, and when he went out shooting, which was seldom, he went alone, or with a game-keeper only. He was so careless with a gun, in fact, that most men who had once shot with him, ever after gave him a wide berth when they saw him with a rifle in his hand. On one occasion he shot his wife’s twin in the calf of the leg, which, however, made her think no worse of his shooting, for she could never be persuaded he had not done it intentionally.