A Red Wallflower. Warner Susan
the colonel so.'
'I shall not meddle in Colonel Gainsborough's affairs,' said Mrs. Dallas, bridling a little; 'he is able to manage them himself; or he thinks he is, which comes to the same thing. But I should say, that child might better be in any other hands than his.'
'Well, she is not shut up to them,' said young Dallas, 'since I have taken her in hand.'
He strolled out of the room as he spoke, and the two elder people were left together. Silence reigned between them till the sound of his steps had quite ceased to be heard.
Mrs. Dallas was working at some wool embroidery, and taking her stitches with a thoughtful brow; her husband in his easy-chair was carelessly turning over the pages of a newspaper. They were a contrast. She had a tall, commanding figure, a gracious but dignified manner, and a very handsome, stately face. There was nothing commanding, and nothing gracious, about Mr. Dallas. His figure was rather small, and his manner insignificant. He was not a handsome man, either, although he may be said to have but just missed it, for his features were certainly good; but he did miss it. Nobody spoke in praise of Mr. Dallas's appearance. Yet his face showed sense; his eyes were shrewd, if they were also cold; and the mouth was good; but the man's whole air was unsympathetic. It was courteous enough; and he was careful and particular in his dress. Indeed, Mr. Dallas was careful of all that belonged to him. He wore long English whiskers of sandy hair, the head crop being very thin and kept very close.
'Hildebrand,' said Mrs. Dallas when the sound of her son's footsteps had died away, 'when are you going to send Pitt to college?'
Mr. Dallas turned another page of his newspaper, and did not hurry his answer.
'Why?'
'And where are you going to send him?'
'Really,' said Mr. Dallas, without ceasing his contemplation of the page before him, 'I do not know. I have not considered the matter lately.'
'Do you remember he is eighteen?'
'I thought you were not ready to let him go yet?'
Mrs. Dallas stopped her embroidery and sighed.
'But he must go, husband.'
Mr. Dallas made no answer. He seemed not to find the question pressing.
Mrs. Dallas sat looking at him now, neglecting her work.
'You have got to make up your mind to it, and so have I,' she went on presently. 'He is ready for college. All this pottering over the classics with Colonel Gainsborough doesn't amount to anything. It keeps him out of idleness—if Pitt ever could be idle—but he has got to go to college after all, sooner or later. He must go!' she repeated with another sigh.
'No special hurry, that I see.'
'What's gained by delay? He's eighteen. That's long enough for him to have lived in a place like this. If I had my way, Hildebrand, I should send him to England.'
'England!' Mr. Dallas put down his paper now and looked at his wife.
What had got into her head?
'Oxford is better than the things they call colleges in this country.'
'Yes; but it is farther off.'
'That's not a bad thing, in some respects. Hildebrand, you don't want Pitt to be formed upon the model of things in this country. You would not have him get radical ideas, or Puritanical.'
'Not much danger!'
'I don't know.'
'Who's to put them in his head? Gainsborough is not a bit of a radical.'
'He is not one of us,' said Mrs. Dallas. 'And Pitt is very independent, and takes his own views from nobody or from anybody. See his educating this girl, now.'
'Educating her!'
'Yes, he is with her and her father a great piece of every day; reading and talking and walking and drying flowers and giving lessons. I don't know what all they are doing. But in my opinion Pitt might be better employed.'
'That won't last,' said the father with a half laugh.
'What ought not to last, had better not be begun,' Mrs. Dallas said sententiously.
There was a pause.
'What are you afraid of, wife?'
'I am afraid of Pitt's wasting his time.'
'You have never been willing to have him go until now. I thought you stood in the way.'
'He was not wasting his time until lately. He was as well at home. But there must come an end to that,' the mother said, with another slight sigh. She was not a woman given to sighing; it meant much from her.
'But England?' said Mr. Dallas. 'What's your notion about England?
Oxford is very well, but the ocean lies between.'
'Where would you send him?'
'I'd send him to the best there is on this side.'
'That's not Oxford. I believe it would be good for him to be out of this country for a while; forget some of his American notions, and get right English ones. Pitt is a little too independent.'
The elder Dallas caressed his whiskers and pondered. If the truth were told, he had been about as unwilling to let his son go away from home as ever his mother could be. Pitt was simply the delight and pride of both their hearts; the one thing they lived for; the centre of all hopes, and the end of all undertakings. No doubt he must go to college; but the evil day had been pushed far off, as far as possible. Pitt was a son for parents to be proud of. He had the good qualities of both father and mother, with some added of his own which they did not share, and which perhaps therefore increased their interest in him.
'I expect he will have a word to say about the matter himself,' the father remarked. 'Oh, well! there's no raging hurry, wife.'
'Husband, it would be a good thing for him to see the English Church as it is in England, before he gets much older.'
'What then?'
'He would learn to value it. The cathedrals, and the noble services in them, and the bishops; and the feeling that everybody around him goes the same way; there's a great deal of power in that. Pitt would be impressed by it.'
'By the feeling that everybody around him goes that way? Not he. That's quite as likely to stir him up to go another way.'
'It don't work so, Hildebrand.'
'You think he's a likely fellow to be talked over into anything?'
'No; but he would be influenced. Nobody would try to talk him over, and without knowing it he would feel the influence. He couldn't help it. All the influence at Oxford would be the right way.'
'Afraid of the colonel? I don't think you need. He hasn't spirit enough left in him for proselyting.'
'I am not speaking of anybody in particular. I am afraid of the air here.'
Mr. Dallas laughed a little, but his face took a shade of gravity it had not worn. Must he send his son away? What would the house be without him?
CHAPTER VI.
GOING TO COLLEGE.
Whatever thoughts were harboured in the elder heads, nothing was spoken openly, and no steps were taken for some time. All through the summer the pleasant intercourse went on, and the lessons, and the botanizing, and the study of coins. And much real work was done; but for Esther one invaluable and abiding effect of a more general character was gained. She was lifted out of her dull despondency, which had threatened to become stagnation, and restored