Baronet added in very obliging words that he himself was particularly desirous of seeing the Freshitt and Tipton estates under the same management, and he hoped to be able to show that the double agency might be held on terms agreeable to Mr Garth, whom he would be glad to see at the Hall at twelve o’clock on the following day.
“He writes handsomely, doesn’t he, Susan?” said Caleb, turning his eyes upward to his wife, who raised her hand from his shoulder to his ear, while she rested her chin on his head. “Brooke didn’t like to ask me himself, I can see,” he continued, laughing silently.
“Here is an honour to your father, children,” said Mrs Garth, looking round at the five pair of eyes, all fixed on the parents. “He is asked to take a post again by those who dismissed him long ago. That shows that he did his work well, so that they feel the want of him.”
“Like Cincinnatus—hooray!” said Ben, riding on his chair, with a pleasant confidence that discipline was relaxed.
“Will they come to fetch him, mother?” said Letty, thinking of the Mayor and Corporation in their robes.
Mrs Garth patted Letty’s head and smiled, but seeing that her husband was gathering up his letters and likely soon to be out of reach in that sanctuary “business,” she pressed his shoulder and said emphatically,
“Now, mind you ask fair pay, Caleb.”
“Oh yes,” said Caleb, in a deep voice of assent, as if it would be unreasonable to suppose anything else of him. “It'll come to between four and five hundred, the two together.” Then with a little start of remembrance he said, “Mary, write and give up that school. Stay and help your mother. I'm as pleased as Punch, now I’ve thought of that.”
No manner could have been less like that of Punch triumphant than Caleb’s, but his talents did not lie in finding phrases, though he was very particular about his letter-writing, and regarded his wife as a treasury of correct language.
There was almost an uproar among the children now, and Mary held up the cambric embroidery towards her mother entreatingly, that it might be put out of reach while the boys dragged her into a dance. Mrs Garth, in placid joy, began to put the cups and plates together, while Caleb pushing his chair from the table, as if he were going to move to the desk, still sat holding his letters in his hand and looking on the ground meditatively, stretching out the fingers of his left hand, according to a mute language of his own. At last he said—
“It’s a thousand pities Christy didn’t take to business, Susan. I shall want help by-and-by. And Alfred must go off to the engineering—I’ve made up my mind to that.” He fell into meditation and finger-rhetoric again for a little while, and then continued:—“I shall make Brooke have new agreements with the tenants, and I shall draw up a rotation of crops. And I'll lay a wager we can get fine bricks out of the clay at Bott’s corner. I must look into that: it would
