Farm business held me from going over to Sandtoft for many days. Much of our land was too rich for the growing of corn--which was apt to spoil on the ground by its own rankness--and was sown with line year after year. This season it fell to my lot to meet the merchants, who came to buy our standing crops, and to show them hospitality. Having occasion to go to Crowle on this business, bargains concluded, I paid my respects to my relatives at the vicarage, little thinking of the reward awaiting my dutiful behaviour. As I entered the door, I heard my aunt cry out, "Frank! I know your step. Come this way." The voice came from the store-room, where I found the notable housewife, among the tubs and jars and boxes, from which she had so often produced dainty cakes and preserved fruits for the delight of my juvenile palate.
"At last you have remembered that you have an aunt!" said she, lifting her face to me. "I am busy now, but I will talk to you after dinner. I have company to-day."
"People you know, Mistress Goel and her father. What is there in that to make you open your eyes so wide?"
"I did not know of your acquaintance with them, that is all."
My aunt gave me to understand that the vicar had visited the strangers when they lodged at the White Hart, and invited them to the vicarage. She herself had taken a violent fondness for the daughter, and for the father a superb contempt.
"The man's daft, or he would not bring a girl to live in a hole like Sandtoft, where there is no other woman except her maid and the wives of mechanics and labourers, and the men are all boors and savages. The only excuse for such barbarity is that the man has lost his wits. But there's a Providence above, and the poor, dear child will have her recompense. There's a coronet at her feet, or soon will be."
"God in heaven! You cannot mean that you favour that beast, Sheffield!"
"No profane language here, Frank. Lord Sheffield is a changed man." Nothing could exceed my aunt's complacency as she gave me this assurance.
"Has he made proposal of marriage?" I asked.
"Not directly as yet; but he is quite open with me," and the good woman smiled loftily.
"He has been several times to hear your uncle discourse, who is satisfied that a work of grace has begun in his lordship's soul. But, bless me! I shall be late with dinner." And she began to bustle among her stores.