the Norfolk stubble-fields. Sport promised to be good, and Damaris had
great faith in Colonel Carteret. With him her father was always amused,
contented, safe. Hordle was in attendance, too, so she knew his comfort
in small material matters to be secure. She could think of him without
any shadow of anxiety, her mind for once at rest. And this she enjoyed.
For it is possible to miss a person badly, long for their return
ardently, yet feel by no means averse to a holiday from more active
expenditure of love on their account.

And Theresa Bilson--pleasing thought!--was, for the moment, absent also,
having gone to tea with the Miss Minetts. Two maiden ladies, these, of
uncertain age, modest fortune and unimpeachable refinement, once like
Theresa herself, members of the scholastic profession; but now, thanks to
the timely death of a relative--with consequent annuities and life
interest in a ten-roomed, stone-built house of rather mournful aspect in
Deadham village--able to rest from their ineffectual labours, support the
Church, patronize their poorer and adulate their richer neighbours to
their guileless hearts' content.

Gentility exuded from the Miss Minetts, and--if it is permissible
slightly to labour the simile--their pores were permanently open. Owing
both to her antecedent and existing situation, it may be added, Theresa
Bilson was precious in their sight. For had she not in the past, like
themselves, sounded the many mortifications of a governess' lot; and was
she not now called up higher, promoted indeed to familiar, almost hourly,
intercourse with the great? Miss Felicia Verity was known to treat her
with affection. Mrs. Augustus Cowden, that true blue of county dames and
local aristocrats, openly approved her. She sat daily at Sir Charles
Verity's table and helped to order his household. What more genuine
patents of gentility could be asked? So they listened with a pleasure,