Olive's twenty-first birthday was celebrated by a dinner to her friends and tenantry. The Manor House and its grounds were thrown open in the old-fashioned, hospitable style, and a plentiful spread was provided under a temporary tent. Here farmers and labourers toasted their young mistress in the strongest and most stinging of ales. Speeches were made and congratulations were offered, and had Mallow but been present in the character of her future husband, Olive would have been completely happy. As it was, she had to introduce Carson in his place. But she accepted the encomiums passed upon his pleasant face and amiable speeches with such show of pleasure as she could command from herself. She could not deny that the husband chosen for her by her father was both attractive and agreeable, that he was even lovable in some ways--perhaps in his very weakness. Laurence was pre-eminently a man of strength; a man imperious and self-sustaining; a man who would love a woman and master a woman, and fulfil the fundamental law of Nature that the male is the lord of creation from an oyster to a wife; in short, a man stable as the universe, fixed as the stars. Angus was pleasant, good-tempered, handsome and weak. He would have made a charming woman, Olive thought with contempt. The Indian bangle was not much out of place, after all, upon his wrist.
On this festive occasion even poor Mrs. Drabble took a holiday. She brought with her Margery, Danton, and Brutus, of whom the first-named clung to Olive's skirts most of the day. She had brought with her and presented to Olive a birthday ode, in its way a marvel of rhyme and of spelling:--
"Oh, may no ethly cares Anoy Olive Bellairs, And may she never fear Her birthday every year, But give up teres and sighs. Till she most hapy dyes."
"Thank you, Margery," said Olive, kissing the little poetess, who was anxiously watching the effect of her ode.
"I hope your good wishes will come true;" and she sighed.
"I have brought Charlotte Corday," remarked Margery, holding up a battered doll with a red cap on its head. "Poor dear! she has had no pleasure since we cut her head off."
"Who cut her head off?" asked Aldean, who was close at hand.
"Brutus, because he said she must 'dree her weird.' It should have been Danton of course, but Danton was at school. I have glued her head on again, but she will never have a strong neck. But I love her all the same."