Of course the man to whom allusion
was made was Mr. Twentyman; and of course the discomfort at. home
had come from Mrs. Masters' approval of that suitor's claim.
Reginald, though he had seen but little of the inside of the
attorney's household, thought it very probable that the stepmother
would make the girl's home very uncomfortable for her. Though he
knew well all the young farmer's qualifications as a husband,--
namely that he was well to do in the world and bore a good
character for honesty and general conduct,--still he thoroughly,
nay heartily approved of Mary's rejection of the man's hand. It
seemed to him to be sacrilege that such a one should have given to
him such a woman. There was, to his thinking, something about Mary
Masters that made it altogether unfit that she should pass her life
as the mistress of Chowton Farm, and he honoured her for the
persistence of her refusal. He took his pipe and went out into the
garden in order that he might think of it all as he strolled round
his little domain.
But why should he think so much about it? Why should he take so
deep an interest in the matter? What was it to him whether Mary
Masters married after her kind, or descended into what he felt to
be an inferior manner of life? Then he tried to tell himself what
were the gifts in the girl's possession which made her what she
was, and he pictured her to himself, running over all her
attributes.
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