They went away to talk of business, leaving me alone. Mrs. Nash Caromel came in with her baby. She wore a white dress and light green ribbons, a lace cap half shading her bright hair. Uncommonly pretty she looked--but I did not like her.
"Is it you, Johnny Ludlow?" said she, pausing a moment at the door, and then holding out her hand. "I thought my husband was here alone."
"He is gone into the library with the Squire."
"Sit down. Have you seen my baby before? Is he not a beauty?"
It was a nice little fellow, with fat arms and blue knitted shoes, a good deal like Nash. They had named him Duncan, after some relative of hers, and the result was that he was never called anything but "Dun." Mrs. Caromel was telling me that she had "short-coated" him early, as it was hot weather, when the others appeared, and the Squire marched me off.
"Johnny," said he, thoughtfully, as we went along, "how curiously Nash Caromel is altered!"
"He seems rather--_down_, sir," I answered, hesitating for a word.
"Down!" echoed the Squire, slightingly; "it's more than that. He seems lost."
"His mind does. When I told him what I had come about: that it was time, and long ago, too, that my interest was paid, he stared at me more like a lunatic than a farmer--as if he had forgotten all about it, interest, and money, and all. When his wits came to him, he said it ought to have been paid, and he'd see Nave about it. Nave's his father-in-law, Johnny, and I suppose will take care of his interests; but I know I'd as soon entrust my affairs to Old Scratch as to him."
The Squire had his interest paid. The next news we heard was that Caromel's Farm was about to give an entertainment on a grand scale; an afternoon fête out-of-doors, with a sumptuous cold collation that you might call by what name you liked--dinner, tea, or supper--in the evening. An invitation printed on a square card came to us, which we all crowded round Mrs. Todhetley to look at. Cards had not come much into fashion then, except for public ceremonies, such as the Mayor's Feast at Worcester. In our part of the world we were still content to write our invitations on note-paper.
The mother would not go. She did not care for fêtes, she said to us. In point of fact she did not like Mrs. Nash Caromel any better than she had liked Charlotte Nave, and she had never believed in the cow. So she sent a civil note of excuse for herself. The Squire accepted, after some hesitation. He and the Caromels had been friends for so many years that he did not care to put the slight of a refusal upon Nash; besides, he liked parties, if they were jolly.