The Three Brides | Page 9

out Dick for the line, and Maurice for
the artillery!"
Charlie came and leant on the mantel-shelf, and commenced a
conversation sotto voce on the subject nearest his heart; while Cecil
continued her catechism.
"Are the Bowaters intellectual?"
"Jenny is very well read," said Julius, "a very sensible person."
"Yes," said Frank; "she was the only person here that so much as tried
to read Browning. But if Cecil wants intellect, she had better take to the
Duncombes, the queerest firm I ever fell in with. He makes the turf a
regular profession, actually gets a livelihood out of his betting-book;
and she is in the strong-minded line-- woman's rights, and all the rest of
it."
"We never had such people at Dunstone," said Cecil. "Papa always said
that the evil of being in parliament was the having to be civil to
everybody."
Just then Raymond came back with intelligence that his mother was

about to go to bed, and to call his wife to wish her good night. All went
in succession to do the same.
"My dear," she said to Anne, "I hoped you were in bed."
"I thought I would wait for family worship."
"I am afraid we don't have prayers at night, my dear. We must resume
them in the morning, now Raymond and Julius are come."
Poor Anne looked all the whiter, and only mumbled out a few answers
to the kind counsels lavished upon her. Mrs. Poynsett was left to think
over her daughters-in-law.
Lady Rosamond did not occupy her much. There was evidently plenty
of good strong love between her and her husband; and though her
training might not have been the best for a clergyman's wife, there was
substance enough in both to shake down together in time.
But it was Raymond who made her uneasy--Raymond, who ever since
his father's death had been more than all her other sons to her. She had
armed herself against the pang of not being first with him, and now she
was full of vague anxiety at the sense that she still held her old position.
Had he not sat all the evening in his own place by her sofa, as if it were
the very kernel of home and of repose? And whenever a sense of duty
prompted her to suggest fetching his wife, had he not lingered, and
gone on talking? It was indeed of Cecil; but how would she have liked
his father, at the honeymoon's end, to prefer talking of her to talking
with her? "She has been most carefully brought up, and is very
intelligent and industrious," said Raymond. His mother could not help
wondering whether a Roman son might not thus have described a
highly accomplished Greek slave, just brought home for his mother's
use.
CHAPTER III
Parish Explorations

A cry more tuneable Was never holla'd to, nor cheer'd with horn, In
Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly: Judge, when you hear.--But, soft;
what nymphs are these? Midsummer Night's Dream
It was quite true that Cecil Charnock Poynsett was a very intelligent
industrious creature, very carefully brought up--nay, if possible, a little
too much so. "A little wholesome neglect" had been lacking.
The only child of her parents who had lived to see a second birthday
was sure to be the centre of solicitude. She had not been spoilt in the
usual acceptation of the word, for she had no liberty, fewer indulgences
and luxuries than many children, and never was permitted to be
naughty; but then she was quite aware that each dainty or each pleasure
was granted or withheld from a careful consideration of her welfare,
and that nothing came by chance with her. And on her rare ebullitions
of self-will, mamma, governess, nurse, nay even papa, were all in
sorrowful commotion till their princess had been brought to a sense of
the enormity of her fault.
She lost her mother at fourteen, but the same anxious training was
carried on by her father; and after three years he married her mother's
most intimate friend, avowedly that the perfect system might be
continued. Cecil's gaieties as a come-out young lady were selected on
the same judicious principles as her childish diversions; and if ever the
Dunstone family favoured an entertainment not to their taste, it was
after a debate on the need of condescension and good-nature. She had,
however, never had a season in London--a place her father hated; but
she was taken abroad as soon as she was deemed old enough
thoroughly to appreciate what she was to see there; and in Switzerland
her Cousin Raymond, who had at different times visited Dunstone,
overtook the party, and ere long made his proposals. He was the very
man to whom two or three centuries ago Mr. Charnock would have