Presently tea was brought in, and together with it came Mrs. Raymond, a stout, submissive, motherly woman, older than her husband, with indefinite eyebrows plaintively raised in an arch of chronic faint surprise. Her black gown was the perfection of neatness, and not a hair of her head was out of place. Molly, in a clean white pinafore, the thick curls carefully brushed and tied back with a ribbon, made a gracious little picture, clinging shyly to her aunt. An air of peaceful domesticity seemed to enter with the woman and child. The bread, butter, and cake were too good not to be home made; and when, after tea, Mrs. Raymond sat down by the window to finish embroidering a frock for Molly, the visitor saw that she was no less excellent a needlewoman than a cook. She was also charitable, as appeared from the red woollen comforter which Molly was learning to knit; the little girl had evidently been taught that the making of warm garments for the poor is an important duty. It occurred to him that this woman of plastic virtues must sometimes find it a little fatiguing to stand a perpetual buffer between husband and nephew.
"Sarah," said the Vicar, when the tea had been cleared away, "I have been telling Dr. Jenkins how deeply we regret what happened on the cliff road yesterday. He is so kind as to take the matter very lightly, and not to demand any more formal apology."
Mrs. Raymond lifted her mild eyes to the visitor's face.
"We are very sorry that you should have had any annoyance. But we have done our best, indeed; and it is most kind of you not to want the boy punished..."
"He will be punished in any case," said the Vicar quietly. "The entry is already made in the conduct book."