He
meant no harm, neither had done much, and was imagined by most
incapable of doing any. The strange thing to some was that he
staid on in the country, and did not go to London and run up
bills for his mother to pay; but the mare accounted for a good
deal; and the fact that almost immediately on his late return he
had seen Letty and fallen in love with her at first sight,
accounted for a good deal more. Not since then, however, had he
yet been able to meet her so as only to speak to her; for
Thornwick was one of the few houses of the middle class in the
neighborhood where he was not encouraged to show himself. He was
constantly, therefore, on the watch for a chance of seeing her,
and every Sunday went to church in that same hope and no other.
But Letty knew nothing of the favor in which she stood with him;
for, although Tom had, as we have heard, confessed to her friend
Mary Marston his admiration of her, Mary had far too much good
sense to make herself his ally in the matter.
CHAPTER VII.
DURNMELLING.
In the autumn, Mr. Mortimer of Durnmelling resolved to give a
harvest-home to his tenants, and under the protection of the
occasion to invite also a good many of his neighbors and of the
townsfolk of Testbridge, whom he could not well ask to dinner:
there happened to be a political expediency for something of the
sort: America is not the only country in which ambition opens the
door to mean doings on the part of such as count themselves
gentlemen.
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