ttention which his daughter's
beauty received. He felt it as reflecting consequence on himself. He
had never troubled his mind with speculations as to whether he
himself was popular, still less whether he was respected. He was
pretty welcome wherever he went, as a jovial good-natured man, who
had done adventurous and illegal things in his youth, which in some
measure entitled him to speak out his opinions on life in general in
the authoritative manner he generally used; but, of the two, he
preferred consorting with younger men, to taking a sober stand of
respectability with the elders of the place; and he perceived,
without reasoning upon it, that the gay daring spirits were more
desirous of his company when Sylvia was by his side than at any
other time. One or two of these would saunter up to Haytersbank on a
Sunday afternoon, and lounge round his fields with the old farmer.
Bell kept herself from the nap which had been her weekly solace for
years, in order to look after Sylvia, and on such occasions she
always turned as cold a shoulder to the visitors as her sense of
hospitality and of duty to her husband would permit. But if they did
not enter the house, old Robson would always have Sylvia with him
when he went the round of his land. Bell could see them from the
upper window: the young men standing in the attitudes of listeners,
while Daniel laid down the law on some point, enforcing his words by
pantomimic actions with his thick stick; and Sylvia, half turning
away as if from some too admiring gaze, was possibly picking flowers
out of the hedge-bank. These Sunday afternoon strolls were the
plague of Bell's life that whole summer. Then it took as much of
artifice as was in the simple woman's nature to keep Daniel from
insisting on having Sylvia's company every time he went down to
Monkshaven. And here, again, came a perplexity, the acknowledgement
of which in distinct thought would have been an act of disloyalty,
according to Bell's conscience. If Sylvia went with her father, he
never drank to excess; and that was a good gain to health at any
rate (drinking was hardly a sin against morals in those days, and in
that place); so, occasionally, she was allowed to accompany him to
Monkshaven as a check upon his folly; for he was too fond and proud
of his daughter to disgrace her by any open excess. But one Sunday
afternoon early in November, Philip came up before the time at which
he usually paid his visits. He looked gra