A Wilful Ward
9781465682314
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
MY dear Kathleen, do try and be reasonable. To hear your grumbling, any one might think the rain had been sent on purpose to disappoint you of your ride. Remember, child. This is the fourth of November, not midsummer, and the rain is seasonable. "It may be seasonable, but it is just as disagreeable and disappointing as if it were not. I do not need to be reminded that this is the fourth of November, for everybody has been dinning the date into my ears for a fortnight past. I have not exchanged words with a single creature without being reminded that this day's meet at Hollingsby will be the finest sight of the kind that Woldshire has witnessed since the old earl died." "The first meet of the season is always a fine spectacle, my dear." "Yes, aunt, but this will be a record meet. The young earl has just come of age, and everybody is bent on making it a gathering to be remembered for generations to come. It is to stand first in the annals of the Hollingsby Hunt." "I dare say you are right, Kathleen. All the gentry will be at the breakfast; the large tenants will be guests, and all the smaller fry will put the best foot foremost. Men and horses will make a brave show, in spite of these drenching showers which keep coming down to spoil the turn-out. However, I for one do not envy them what they are pleased to call 'sport.' I cannot forget the foxes' side of the question." "As if foxes were of any use," replied Kathleen, with a curl of her pretty lip. "In a way, they do not seem to be, but I never like to assume that about any living thing. I cannot imagine that any creature, however humble its place in nature, however repulsive it may seem to some of us, was made without being destined to fill some useful niche in the great Creator's plan. I do not pretend to know all about these things. But if one grasps, in ever so little a way, the idea how great and good and kind God is, and how His wisdom is shown in every work of His hands, one may believe that the meanest of all has its use."
