But the road, even the byroad, was excellent; for Lowick, as we have seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants; and it was into Lowick parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles’ riding.  Another mile would bring them to Stone Court, and at the end of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it had been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected budding of farm-buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman farmer.  It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of walnuts on the right.

Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on the circular drive before the front door.

“Dear me,” said Rosamond, “I hope none of my uncle’s horrible relations are there.”

“They are, though.  That is Mrs. Waule’s gig—­the last yellow gig left, I should think.  When I see Mrs. Waule in it, I understand how yellow can have been worn for mourning.  That gig seems to me more funereal than a hearse.  But then Mrs. Waule always has black crape on.  How does she manage it, Rosy?  Her friends can’t always be dying.”

“I don’t know at all.  And she is not in the least evangelical,” said Rosamond, reflectively, as if that religious point of view would have fully accounted for perpetual crape.  “And, not poor,” she added, after a moment’s pause.

“No, by George!  They are as rich as Jews, those Waules and Featherstones; I mean, for people like them, who don’t want to spend anything.  And yet they hang about my uncle like vultures, and are afraid of a farthing going away from their side of the family.  But I believe he hates them all.”

The Mrs. Waule who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these distant connections, had happened to say this very morning (not at all with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice heard through cotton wool) that she did not wish “to enjoy their good opinion.”  She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother’s hearth, and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years before she had been Jane Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother’s name had been made free with by those who had no right to it.

“What are you driving at there?” said Mr. Featherstone, holding his stick between his knees and settling his wig, while he gave her a momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draught of cold air and set him coughing.

Mrs. Waule had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he had begun to rub the gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire.  It was a bright fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of Mrs. Waule’s face, which was as neutral as her voice; having mere chinks for eyes, and lips that hardly moved in speaking.