Mrs. Garland was of a festive and sanguine turn of mind, a woman
soon set up and soon set down, and the coming of the regiments quite
excited her. She thought there was reason for putting on her best
cap, thought that perhaps there was not; that she would hurry on the
dinner and go out in the afternoon; then that she would, after all,
do nothing unusual, nor show any silly excitements whatever, since
they were unbecoming in a mother and a widow. Thus circumscribing
her intentions till she was toned down to an ordinary person of
forty, Mrs. Garland accompanied her daughter downstairs to dine,
saying, 'Presently we will call on Miller Loveday, and hear what he
thinks of it all.'
II. SOMEBODY KNOCKS AND COMES IN
Miller Loveday was the representative of an ancient family of
corn-grinders whose history is lost in the mists of antiquity. His
ancestral line was contemporaneous with that of De Ros, Howard, and
De La Zouche; but, owing to some trifling deficiency in the
possessions of the house of Loveday, the individual names and
intermarriages of its members were not recorded during the Middle
Ages, and thus their private lives in any given century were
uncertain. But it was known that the family had formed matrimonial
alliances with farmers not so very small, and once with a gentleman-
tanner, who had for many years purchased after their death the
horses of the most aristocratic persons in the county--fiery steeds
that earlier in their career had been valued at many hundred
guineas.
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