The next scene in which Joyce found herself which broke the ordinary routine of her life was the great garden-party at the soap-boiler’s, which was all that the poor Sitwells had got out of their supposed great demonstration and triumph of the school-feast. Sir Samuel Thompson lived in a large mansion on the hill overlooking the whole panorama of the Thames valley, with its winding river and happy woods—a scene enchanting enough to have satisfied any poet, and which this rich and comfortable person looked upon with much complacency, as in a manner belonging to himself, and deriving a certain importance from that fact. He was a man who was fond of great and costly things, and it seemed natural to him that his windows should command the best thing in the way of a view that was to be had near enough London to be valuable. And it gave him much satisfaction to gather around him all ‘the best people’ from miles round: it was pleasant thus to be able to prove the value of money, which was the thing that had made him great, and which he liked to glorify accordingly. ‘They all knock under to it in the end,’ he was fond of saying. ‘They think a deal of themselves and their families, and rank and all that, but money’s what draws them in the end.’ And Sir Sam was right. Some people came because his house was a show house, and his table the most luxurious of any far or near; and some because to see him swelling like a turkey-cock in the midst of his wealth was funny; and some by that indefinable attraction which wealth has, which brings the most rebellious to their knees: at all events, everybody came.
Sir Sam was, to use his own phraseology, the chief partner in his own concern. Nobody remarked Lady Thompson. She was not the leader of the expenditure and display, as the wife of a self-made man so often is. She was a homely stout little person, who did not love her grandeur—who would have been far happier in
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 the housekeeper’s room. Even in the finest dresses—and she had very fine dresses—there was to understanding eyes the shadow of an apron, a sort of ghostly representation of a soft white comfortable lap to which a child might cling, where stockings to be darned might lie. She stood a step behind Sir Sam to receive their guests. He said, ‘How do you do? hope I see you well. Hope you’ve brought a large party—the more the merrier; there’s plenty of room for all;’ while she only shook hands with the visitors and beamed upon them. She went everywhere with her husband, but always in this subsidiary capacity. And Sir Sam was by no means reluctant to bestow the light of his countenance. It was not so difficult a thing to persuade him to appear at an afternoon party as the deluded Sitwells had supposed. He liked to show himself and his fat horses and his carriage, which was the last and newest and most comfortable that had ever been fashioned. But there he stopped. He took a cup of tea from any one; but if they thought to get anything more in return they were mistaken, and justly too,—for why should a millionaire’s good offices be purchased by a cup of tea? He had the right on his side.
This poor Mrs. Sitwell found when she made her anxious and at last desperate attempt to gain his ear. To waste his attentions upon the wife of the incumbent of St. Augustine’s did not in the least commend itself to Sir Sam. He was not aware that she was amusing, and could take off all his friends; and he thought with justice that she was not worthy to be selected out from that fine company only because she had asked him to her school-feast. In return for the cup of tea offered to him there—which he did not drink—he had asked her and her husband to his gorgeous house, and put it within their power to drink tea of the finest quality, coffee iced and otherwise, claret-cup or champagne-cup; and to eat ices of various kinds, cakes, fruit, grapes, which at that time of the year, had they been sold, would have been worth ever so much a pound. Sir Sam thought he had given the parson of St. Augustine’s and his wife a very ample equivalent for their cup of tea.
Joyce went to this great gathering in Mrs. Hayward’s train, as usual, following—with a silence and gravity which were gradually acquiring for her the character of a very dignified and somewhat proud young woman—her stepmother’s active steps. She knew a few people now, and silently accepted offered hands put out to her as she bowed with a smile and response to the greeting, but no more. The crowd was no longer a blank to her. She did not now feel as if left alone and among strangers when, in the course
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 of Mrs. Hayward’s more brilliant career, she was left to take care of herself. On this occasion it was not long before she saw the portly Canon swinging down upon her, with the lapels of his long coat swinging too, on either side of the round and vast black silk waistcoat. She had been watching, with a disturbed amusement, the greetings made at the corner of a green alley between Mrs. Jenkinson and Mrs. Sitwell. They had been full of cordiality—the elder lady stooping to give the younger one a dab upon her cheek, which represented a kiss. ‘I could not think it was you,’ Mrs. Jenkinson said; ‘I have been watching you these ten minutes. How are you, and how are the dear children? I am very pleased to see you here. I did not know you knew the Thompsons.’
‘Oh yes; very well indeed,’ said the parson’s wife, with a beaming smile. ‘What a pretty party it is!’
‘A party cannot well fail to be pretty when it is given in such gardens as these; and with such a house behind it, flowing with wine and oil.’
‘You mean with ices and tea. It’s very fine, no doubt; but I like something humbler, that one can call one’s own, quite as well.’
‘No one should attempt these parties,’ said Mrs. Jenkinson, ‘who has not a large place to give them in, and plenty of things going on—tennis and all that, or music, or a beautiful prospect: we have them all here.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs. Sitwell, ‘we did very well indeed, I assure you, in Wombwell’s field. You did not do me the honour to come, but everybody else did—the Thompsons and all.’
‘Really,’ Mrs. Jenkinson said. She added pointedly, feeling that she was not a match for the lively and nimble person with whom she was engaged— ‘It must, I fear, have been very expensive.’
‘Oh, not at all,’ said the parson’s wife. ‘You see, we gave nothing but tea. People don’t come for what they get, though dear Sir Sam thinks so; they come to see other people, and meet their friends, and spend the afternoon pleasantly. Don’t you think so, dear Mrs. Jenkinson? If I had the smallest little place of my own, with a little bit of a garden, such as we might have if there ever is a parsonage to St. Augustine’s, I should not be at all afraid to ask even the Duchess to tea. She would come for me, she is such a dear,’ Mrs. Sitwell said.
‘I am afraid I am not half so courageous,’ the Canon’s wife replied; and she added quickly, ‘There is Lady St. Clair; excuse
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 me, I must say a word to her,’ and hastened away. She was routed, horse and foot; for Mrs. Jenkinson did not know the Duchess, and this little district incumbent, this nobody, this scheming, all-daring little woman, actually did, by some freak of fortune,—and probably would have the audacity—and succeed in it, as such sort of persons so often do—to ask that great lady to tea.
The Canon swooped down upon Joyce after this little scene was over. She was standing by herself, only half-seeing the fun, perhaps because her sense of humour was faint, perhaps only because of her vague understanding of all that lay underneath, and made it funny. He took her hand and drew it within his arm. ‘Here you are, you little rebel,’ he said. ‘I have got you at last. There is nobody eligible within sight. Come and take a walk with me.’
Joyce had very little idea what he meant by some one eligible; but she was very well content to be led away, hurrying her own steps to suit the swinging gait of the big Churchman. He led her through the green alleys and broad walks of the soap-boiler’s magnificent grounds to the mount of vision which crowned them. ‘There now! look at that view,’ he said, ‘and tell me if you have anything like it in Scotland. You brag us out for scenery, I know; but where did you ever see anything like that?’
Joyce looked up in his face for a moment, then answered, with a smile, ‘I like as well to see the Crags below Arthur’s Seat, and the sea coming in ayont them.’
‘Eh!’ cried the Canon, lifting his brows. ‘What do you mean by that? You don’t generally speak like that.’
With nobody was Joyce so much at her ease as with this big impetuous man. ‘There was once,’ she said, in the tone, half bantering, half reproachful, with which she had once been wont to recall her ‘big’ class to the horror of having forgotten something in Shakespeare, ‘a little Scotswoman whose name was Jeanie Deans.’
‘Eh!’ cried the Canon again; and then he pressed, with half angry affectionateness, the hand that was on his arm. ‘Oh, you are at me with Scott!’ he said—‘taking a base advantage; for it’s a long time since I read him. So Jeanie Deans said that, did she? I don’t remember much about her. They say Scott is played out, you know, in these days.’
‘Then, sir,’ said Joyce quickly, ‘they say what they don’t understand; for look how it comes to me just as the natural thing to say. Sir Walter knew—he and some others, they know almost
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 like God—what is in the hearts of the common people that have no words to speak.’
‘Ah!’ said the Canon; and then he laughed and added, ‘So you are one of the common people that have no words to speak? It’s not the account I should have given of you. Sit down here, and let’s pluck our crow. You have gone entirely off, you little schismatic, to the other side.’
‘No,’ said Joyce.
‘No! how can you tell me no, when I know to the contrary? You’ve been out in the district visiting with her. You are going to undertake something about the schools. They’ve had you to tea in company with the curate and that fat dolt Cosham whom they lead by the nose. Oh, you wonder how I know! My dear,’ said the Canon, with a slight blush, if it is to be supposed that a canon can blush, ‘a clergyman in a country parish knows everything—whether he will or not. Now, isn’t it true?’
‘Yes, it is quite true,’ said Joyce; and then she added, looking up at him again with a smile, and a little rising colour, caused by what she felt to be her boldness, ‘But still I like you best.’
‘My dear girl,’ cried the Canon. He patted her shoulder with his large white hand, and Joyce saw with astonishment a little moisture in his big eyes. ‘I always knew you were an exceeding nice little girl,’ he said. ‘I took a fancy to you the first time I met you. It gives me the greatest pleasure that you should like me best. But, my dear, why do you go over to the other side if you are so wis............