A few days passed, and the new cousin continued to be very popular at Mount. Mrs. Mountford made no secret of her liking for him.
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I was never partial to the other branch, especially having no son myself. The Mount family has never liked them. Though they have always been poor, they have claimed to be the elder branch, and when your property is to go away from you without any fault of yours, naturally you are not fond of those to whom it goes. But with Heathcote one forgets all these prejudices. He is so thoroughly nice, he is so affectionate. He has no family of his own (unless you call his delicate brother a family), and anyone can see how he likes ladies’ society. Mr. Mountford thinks as much of him as we do. I quite look forward to introducing him to our friends; and I hope he may get to be popular in the county, for now that we have made such friends with him, he will be often here I trust.’
Such was the excellent opinion his cousin’s wife expressed of him. It is needless to say that her neighbours imputed motives to poor Mrs. Mountford, and jumped at the cause of her partiality. ‘She means him to marry Rose,’ everybody said; and some applauded her prudence; and some denounced her selfishness in sacrificing Rose to a man old enough to be her father; but, on the whole, the county approved both the man himself and the opportunity of making his acquaintance. He was asked to dinner at Meadowlands, which was all that could be desired for any visitor in the neighbourhood. The Mountfords felt that they had done their utmost for any guest of theirs when they had procured them this gratification. And Lord Meadowlands quite ‘took to’ Heathcote. This was the best thing that could happen to anyone new to the county, the sort of thing on which the other members of society congratulated each other when the neophyte was a favourite, taking each other into corners and saying: ‘He has been a great deal at the Castle,’ or ‘He has been taken up by Lord Meadowlands.’ Thus the reception given to the heir of entail was in every way satisfactory, and even Mr. Mountford himself got to like him. The only one who kept aloof was Anne, who was at this moment very much preoccupied with her own thoughts; but it was not from any dislike to the new member of the household. He had not fulfilled her expectations. But that most probably was not his fault. And, granting the utter want of delicate perception in him, and understanding of the rôle which ought to have been his in the circumstances, Anne, after a few days, came to think tolerably well of her new kinsman. He was intelligent: he could talk of things which the others rejected as nonsense or condemned as highflown. On the question of the cottages, for instance, he had shown great good sense; and on the whole, though with indifference, Anne conceded a general approval to him. But they did not draw together, or so at least the other members of the family thought. Rose monopolised him when he was in the drawing-room. She challenged him at every turn, as a very young and innocent girl may do, out of mere high spirits, without conscious coquetry at least: she contradicted him and defied him, and adopted his opinions and scoffed at them by turns, keeping him occupied, with an instinctive art which was quite artless, and meant ‘fun’ more than anything serious. At all this pretty play Anne looked on without seeing it, having her head full of other things. And the mother looked on, half-afraid, half-disapproving (as being herself of a stricter school and older fashion), yet not sufficiently afraid or displeased to interfere; while Heathcote himself was amused, and did not object to the kittenish sport of the pretty little girl, whose father (he said to himself) he might have been, so far as age went. But he kept an eye, notwithstanding, on ‘the other girl,’ whom he did not understand. That she was ‘engaged,’ and yet not permitted to be spoken of as ‘engaged’--that there was some mystery about her--was evident. A suspicion of a hidden story excites every observer. Heathcote wanted to find it out, as all of us would have done. As for himself, he was not incapable of higher sentiments, though Anne had easily set him down as being so: but his experiences had not been confined to one romantic episode, as she, in her youthful ignorance, had supposed. The story was true enough, but with a difference. The Italian princess was not a noble lady compelled to wed in her own rank and relinquish her young Englishman, as Mrs.