Reuben was silent, his heart was full of disgust. Somehow those delicious sausages stuck in his throat, but he was too young to push away his plate and refuse to eat more of this token of his father's apathy and Odiam's shame. He ate silently on, and as soon as he had finished rose from table, leaving the room with a mumble about being tired."Look up, pretty one," said De Boteler to Margaret!"Now, by my faith Holgrave, I commend your choice. I wonder not that such a prize was contended for. Margaret,I believe that is your name? Look up! and tell me in what secret place you grew into such beauty?""It's lik them trains," he said to the chauffeur, "unaccountable strange and furrin-looking at first, but[Pg 449] naun to spik of when you're used to 'em. Well I remember when the first railway train wur run from Rye to Hastingsand most people too frightened to go in it, though it never m?ade more'n ten mile an hour."
ONE:At Odiam dinner was waiting. It was a generous meal, which combined the good things of this world with the right amount of funereal state. Several of the neighbours had been invited, and the housewife wished to do them honour, knowing that her table boasted luxuries not to be found at other farmsa bottle of French wine, for instance, which though nobody touched it, gave distinction to the prevalent ale, and one or two light puddings, appealing to the eye as well as to the palate. As soon as the meal was over and the guests had gone, Reuben took himself off, and did not reappear till supper-time.
TWO:"Is Odiam that farm near Totease?"
THREE:FOOTNOTES:
FORE:Chapter 8One day Caro came home from Rye, where she had gone with the vegetables to market, and said that she had met Bessie Lamb. Bessie was on her way to the station, where she would take the train for Southampton. Robert had written that he was now able to have her with him in Australia, and she had at once packed up her few belongings and set out to join him in the unknown.
"Come closer to the table, Mary Byles," said Sir Robert, addressing her in an authoritative, but yet in a familiar tone"come nearer; and with my Lord de Boteler's leave, I shall ask you a few questions." Mary curtsied, and rather hesitatingly approached the foot of the table."You shall receive that of your own eyes," said Holgrave, "if it please you to accompany me;" and Richard, expressing a wish to witness every thing connected with the strange discovery, arose, and, with De Boteler, Oxford, and Sir Robert Knowles, proceeded as we have before described, to the bed-chamber. "From that bed, my lord," said Holgrave to De Boteler, "I took the childit slept soundlyI crept down these stepsit was a dark nightand I got home without being seen!"CHAPTER V.The next year, Richard and Anne Backfield took a house at Playden for week-ends. Anne wanted to be near her relations at the Manor, and Richard, softened by prosperity, had no objection to returning to the scene of his detested youth."Conservatives, 'tis all serene
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