"But why did she refuse him?" he wished he knew, and ere he slept he
had resolved to study Anna Ruthven closely, and ascertain, if
possible, the motive which prompted her to discard a man like Arthur
Leighton.
The next day brought the Hetherton party, all but Lucy Harcourt, who,
Fanny laughingly said, was just now suffering from clergyman on the
brain, and, as a certain cure for the disease, had turned my Lady
Bountiful, and was playing the pretty patroness to all Mr. Leighton's
parishioners, especially a Widow Hobbs, whom she had actually taken to
ride in the carriage, and to whose ragged children she had sent a
bundle of cast-off party dresses; and the tears ran down Fanny's
cheeks as she described the appearance of the elder Hobbs, who came to
church with a soiled pink silk skirt, her black, tattered petticoat
hanging down below and one of Lucy's opera hoods upon her head.
"And the clergyman on the brain? Does he appreciate the situation? I
have an interest there. He is an old friend of mine," Thornton
Hastings asked.
He had been an amused listener to Fanny's gay badinage, laughing
merrily at the idea of Lucy's taking old women out to air and clothing
her children in party dresses.
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