Dr. Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was therein, entered to lay down a book which the doctor had lent him, with injunctions to leave it on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca looked up at the sound of the young peasant’s step.
“I beg your honour’s pardon, I did not know—”
“Never mind: lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look well, my child: this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?”
“Oh, yes, Sir!”
“Yet it is higher ground,—more exposed?”
“That can hardly be, sir,” said Lenny; “there are many plants grow here which don’t flourish at the squire’s. The hill yonder keeps off the east wind, and the place lays to the south.”
“Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these parts?”
“Eh, sir?”
“I mean what maladies, what diseases?”
“I never heard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism.”
“No low fevers, no consumption?”
“Never heard of them, sir.”
Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved. “That seems a very kind family at the Hall.”
“I have nothing to say against it,” answered Lenny, bluntly. “I have not been treated justly. But as that book says, sir, ‘It is not every one who comes into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth.’”
Little thought the doctor that those wise maxims may leave sore thoughts behind them! He was too occupied with the subject most at his own heart to think then of what was in Lenny Fairfield’s.
“Yes; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see much of Miss Hazeldean?”
“Not so much as of the Lady.”
“Is she liked in the village, think you?”
“Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once,—she did not ask me to beg its pardon, she asked mine! She’s a very nice young lady; the girls say she is very affable; and,” added Lenny, with a smile, “there are always more weddings going on when she is down at the Hall.”
“Oh!” said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, “Did you ever see her play with the little children? Is she fond of children, do you think?”
“Lord, sir, you guess everything! She’s never so pleased as when she’s playing with the babies.”
“Humph!” grunted Riccabocca. “Babies! well, that’s woman-like. I don’t mean exactly babies, but when they’re older,—little girls?”
“Indeed, Sir, I dare say; but,” said Lenny, primly, “I never as yet kept company with the little girls.”
“Quite right, Lenny; be equally discreet all your life. Mrs. Dale is very intimate with Miss Hazeldean,—more than with the squire’s lady. Why is that, think you?”
“Well, sir,” said Leonard, shrewdly, “Mrs. Dale has her little tempers, though she’s a very good lady; and Madame Hazeldean is rather high, and has a spirit. But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall.”
“Indeed! get my hat out of the parlour, and—just bring a clothes-brush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk.”
After this most mean and dishonourable inquisition into the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signor Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action; and he walked forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace.
“Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe’s, the padrone shall have his child!” muttered the servant, looking up from the garden.
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