“Come and look at Penton in the moonlight,” said Anne, she who was so indifferent to Penton. But somehow to all of them the sting was taken out of it, and there was no pain for them in the sight.
Mrs. Russell Penton did not let the grass grow under her feet. In two or three days after the above events, before Mr. Penton had made up his mind to give any answer, good or bad, another emissary appeared at the Hook. He was a messenger less imposing but more practical than the stately lady who had perhaps calculated a little--more than was justified by the effect produced--upon her own old influence over her cousin. No influence, save that of mutual interest and business-like arrangement, was in the thoughts of the present negotiator. He drove up to the door in a delightful dog-cart, with a fine horse and the neatest groom, a perfectly well-appointed equipage altogether, such as it is a pleasure to see. He was as well got-up himself as the rest of the turn-out--a young man with a heavy mustache and an air--Anne, who at the sound of this arrival could not be restrained from moving to the window and looking out behind the curtains, pronounced him to be “A Guardsman, I should think.” “A Guardsman! how should you know what a Guardsman is like? and what could he want here?” Walter had said, contemptuously. But he too had peeped a little, ashamed of himself for doing so. “A bagman, you mean, coming for orders,” he cried; to which his sister retorted with equal justice: “How do you know what a bagman is like? and what orders could he get here?” The two young people were considerably discomfited when the stranger, in all his smartness and freshness, with a flower in his button-hole (in the middle of winter), was suddenly shown in upon them by Martha with the murmur of a name which neither caught, and which, as Anne divined, their handmaiden had mumbled on purpose, not comprehending what it was.
The stranger made his bow and explained that he had come to see Mr. Penton on business; and then he displayed an amiable willingness to enter into conversation with the younger branches of the family. “Your roads are not all that could be desired,” he said, finding upon his coat-sleeve an infinitesimal spot of mud. “I am afraid it must be pretty damp here.’