“John Rossiter will not be very much the worse for that,” said Alice without relaxing a moment from her work. There was a sound of drolling in her voice, as though she were quizzing her stepmother for her folly.
“It seems to me that men may do anything now,” continued Mrs. Dugdale.
“I suppose they are the same now as they always were,” said the doctor. “If a man chose to be false he could always be false.”
“I call it unmanly,” said Mrs. Dugdale. “If I were a man I would beat him.”
“What would you beat him for?” said Alice, getting up, and as she did so throwing down on the table before her the little frock she was making. “If you had the power of beating him, why would you beat him?”
“How do you know that? Did I ever tell you so? Have you ever heard a word that he has said to me, either direct from himself, or second-hand, that justifies you in saying that he has ill-used me? You ill-use me when you speak like that.”
“Alice, do not be so violent,” said the doctor.
“Father, I will speak of this once, and once for all;--and then pray, pray, let there be no further mention of it. I have no right to complain of anything in Major Rossiter. He has done me no wrong. Those who love me should not mention his name in reference to me.”
“He is no villain. He is a gentleman, as far as I know, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. Does it ever occur to you how little you make of me when you talk of him in this way? Dismiss it all from your mind, father, and let things be as they were. Do you think that I am pining for any man’s love? I say that Major Rossiter is a true man and a gentleman;--but I would not give my Bobby’s little finger for all his whole body.” Then there was silence, and afterwards the doctor told his wife that the Major’s name had better not be mentioned again among them. Alice on this occasion was, or appeared to be, very angry with Mrs. Dugdale; but on that evening and the next morning there was an accession of tenderness in her usually sweet manner to her stepmother. The expression of her mother’s anger against the Major had been wrong;--but the feeling of anger was not the less endearing.
Some time after that, one evening, the parson came upon Alice as she was picking flowers in one of the Beetham lanes. She had all the children with her, and was filling Minnie’s apron with roses from the hedge. Old Mr. Rossiter stopped and talked to them, and after awhile succeeded in getting Alice to walk on with him. “You haven’t heard from John?” he said.