When the ladies reached the village they found it all agog, every door was full of faces, and the howls of scrubbing infancy arose from every yard.
Mrs. Waring looked shy and twitched a good deal, but on the whole she bore herself gallantly.
The mothers embarrassed her, they seemed to expect conversation, and this was even the case with the children; she could just smile at them, however, and be silent. It was among the babies she shone, not, indeed, in her mode of holding them—she did that with her fingers, delicately, as if they were pens—but she got so eager over them, so full of interest, asked so many anxious questions as to their appetites, and gave such amazing hints concerning their management that she made an impression on the village such as astonished the oldest inhabitant, and set the women’s tongues wagging at a rate to surprise even their husbands.
It was an event, an epoch-making day in the village of Waring, when the squire’s wife stepped in bodily presence in and out of its houses, and disseminated useful knowledge concerning the human infant.
When Gwen heard of it, in the same letter that told her to send her mother a sketch of herself without delay, she laughed sarcastically.
“This is dishonest of Mrs. Fellowes!” she cried with a little stamp, “how dare she make all this fresh phase of lunacy into a pathetic story? There is a ring of false sentiment through the whole business.”
_The Guardian_ says:—Messrs. HUTCHINSON’S Popular Library is really a most promising and remarkable sign of the times. Here we have the old-established novel docked of its superfluous spaces and margins, and offered to the reader neatly bound, nicely printed, comfortable to handle, with plenty of matter and interest, and all for the modest sum of 2s. 6d.
=Austin Friars.= =Too Much Alone.= =The Rich Husband.= =Maxwell Drewitt.= =Far above Rubies.= =A Life’s Assize.= =The World in the Church.= =Home, Sweet Home.= =Phemie Keller.= =The Race for Wealth.= =The Earl’s Promise.= =Mortomley’s Estate.= =Frank Sinclair’s Wife.= =The Ruling Passion.= =My First and My Last Love.= =City and Suburb.= =Above Suspicion.= =Joy after Sorrow.=
=Miss Harrington’s Husband.= =Mount Eden.= =Gerald Estcourt.= =Love’s Conflict.= =Too Good for Him.= =Woman against Woman.= =For Ever and Ever.= =Nelly Brooke.= =Veronique.= =Her Lord and Master.= =The Prey of the Gods.= =The Girls of Feversham.= =Mad Dumaresq.= =No Intentions.= =Petronel.=