As Elisabeth had surmised, the entertainment on this occasion was pork-pie; and Mrs. Hankey, a near neighbour, had also been bidden to share the feast. So the tea-party was a party of four, the respective husbands of the two ladies not yet having returned from their duties at the Osierfield.
"I hope that you'll all make yourselves welcome," said the hostess, after they had sat down at the festive board. "Master Christopher, my dear, will you kindly ask a blessing?"
Christopher asked a blessing as kindly as he could, and Mrs. Bateson continued:
"Well, to be sure, it is a pleasure to see you looking so tall and strong, Master Christopher, after all your schooling. I'm not in favour of much schooling myself, as I think it hinders young folks from growing, and puts them off their vittles; but you give the contradiction to that notion--doesn't he, Mrs. Hankey?"
Mrs. Hankey shook her head. It was her rule in life never to look on the bright side of things; she considered that to do so was what she called "tempting Providence." Her theory appeared to be that as long as Providence saw you were miserable, that Power was comfortable about you and let you alone; but if Providence discovered you could bear more sorrow than you were then bearing, you were at once supplied with that little more. Naturally, therefore, her object was to convince Providence that her cup of misery was full. But Mrs. Hankey had her innocent enjoyments, in spite of the sternness of her creed. If she took light things seriously, she took serious things lightly; so she was not without her compensations. For instance, a Sunday evening's discourse on future punishment and the like, with illustrations, was an unfailing source of pure and healthful pleasure to her; while a funeral sermon--when the chapel was hung with black, and the bereaved family sat in state in their new mourning, and the choir sang Vital Spark as an anthem--filled her soul with joy. So when Mrs. Bateson commented with such unseemly cheerfulness upon Christopher's encouraging appearance, it was but consistent of Mrs. Hankey to shake her head.
"You can never tell," she replied--"never; often them that looks the best feels the worst; and many's the time I've seen folks look the very picture of health just before they was took with a mortal illness."