"Why not, indeed!" returned Walden, playfully; "but your 'man of God' won't be me, Mrs. Spruce! I'm off! I congratulate you on your preparations, and I think you are doing everything splendidly! If Miss Vancourt does not look upon you as a positive treasure, I shall be very much mistaken! Good afternoon!"
"Passon, Passon!" urged Mrs. Spruce; "Ye baint goin' already?"
"I must! To-morrow's Sunday, remember!"
"Ah!--that it is!" she sighed, "And my mind sorely misgives me that I never asked the new servants whether they was 'Igh, Low or Roman. It fairly slipped my memory, and they seemed never to think of it themselves. Why didn't they remind me, Passon?--can you answer me that? Which it proves the despisableness of our naturs that we never thinks of the religious sides of ourselves, but only our wages and stummicks. Wages and stummicks comes fust, and the care of the Lord Almighty arterwards. But, there, there!--we're jest a perverse and stiffnecked generation!"
Walden turned away. Mrs. Spruce, at last deciding to resign her hold of the pink shoes, over whose pointed toes she had been moralising, gave them into the care of the rosy-cheeked Phyllis, who was assisting her in her labours, and followed her 'man of God' out to the landing.
"Do ye reely think we're doin' quite right, and that we're quite safe, Passon?" she queried, anxiously.
"You're doing quite right, and you're quite safe," replied Walden, laughing. "Go on in your present path of virtue, Mrs. Spruce, and all will be well! I really cannot wait a moment longer. Don't trouble to come and show me out,--I know my way!"
He sprang down the broad stairs as lightly as a boy, leaving Mrs. Spruce at the summit, looking wistfully after him.
"It's a pity he couldn't stay!" she murmured, dolefully; "There's a lace petticut which must be worth a fortune!--I'd have liked 'im to see it!"
But Walden was beyond recall. On reaching the bottom of the staircase he had turned into the picture gallery, a long, lofty room panelled with Jacobean oak on both sides and hung with choice canvases, the work of the best masters, three or four fine Gainsboroughs, Peter Lelys and Romneys being among the most notable examples. At one end of the gallery a close curtain of dark green baize covered a picture which was understood to be the portrait of the Mrs. Vancourt who had never lived to see her intended home. The late Squire had himself put up that curtain, and no one had ever dared to lift it. Mrs. Spruce had often been asked to do so, but she invariably refused, 'not wishin' to be troubled with ghosteses of the old Squire,' as she frankly explained. Facing this, at the opposite end, hung another picture, disclosed in all its warm and brilliant colouring to the light of day,--the picture of Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt, who, in the time of Charles the Second had been a noted beauty of the 'merry monarch's' reign, and whose counterfeit presentment Mrs. Spruce had styled 'the lady in the vi'let velvet.' John Walden had suddenly taken a fancy to look at this portrait though for ten years he had known it well.