This latter could not be Connie's case, but the former
was hers, and so far she might be called a martyr, even as the old women of
the village designated her.
After we had again started, our ears were invaded with shouts from the
post-chaise behind us, in which Charlie and Harry, their grief at the
abandoned chest forgotten as if it had never been, were yelling in the
exuberance of their gladness. Dora, more staid as became her years, was
trying to act the matron with them in vain, and old nursie had enough to
do with Miss Connie's baby to heed what the young gentlemen were about, so
long as explosions of noise was all the mischief. Walter, the man-servant,
who had been with us ten years, and was the main prop of the establishment,
looking after everything and putting his hand to everything, with an
indefinite charge ranging from the nursery to the wine-cellar, and from
the corn-bin to the pig-trough, and who, as we could not possibly get on
without him, sat on the box of the post-chaise beside the driver from
the Griffin, rather connived, I fear, than otherwise at the noise of the
youngsters.
"Good-bye, Marshmallows," they were shouting at the top of their voices,
as if they had just been released from a prison, where they had spent a
wretched childhood; and, as it could hardly offend anybody's ears on the
open country road I allowed them to shout till they were tired, which
condition fortunately arrived before we reached the station, so that there
was no occasion for me to interfere.
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