Emlyn certainly was very happy in her new quarters. Neither her lady
nor herself was arrayed with the rigid plainness exacted by
Puritanism, and many disapproving glances were cast upon the fair
young pair, mistress and maid, by the sterner matrons. Waiting women
could not indulge in much finery, but whatever breast knots and tiny
curls beyond her little tight cap could do, Emlyn did without fear of
rebuke. Stead tried to believe that the disapproving looks and
words, by which Mrs. Lightfoot intimated that she heard reports
unfavourable to the household were only due to the general distrust
and dislike to the bright and lively Emlyn. Mrs. Lightfoot was no
Puritan herself, but her gossips were, and he received her
observations with a dull, stony look that vexed her, by intimating
that it was no business of hers.
Still it was borne in upon him that, good man as Mr. Henshaw
certainly was, the household was altered. It had been poverty and
distress which had led the Ayliffe family to give their young sister
to a man so much her elder, and inferior in position; and perhaps
still more a desire to confirm the Royalist footing in the city of
Bristol.
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