Her father, Mr. Ives, was bringing her home from Newbury, where she had
spent the last six months with her aunt, Mrs. Primrose, seeing something
of the gay world in the county town.
The father and daughter, who sat opposite to each other, bore a strong
resemblance to each other. In the girl's face the dark brows were more
arched, the large blue eyes more tender, the firm mouth more sweet, and
all tinted with the lilies and roses of a fresh country life, so
beautifully blended on the peach-like cheeks that, even without her rare
perfection of feature, the colouring alone would have made Betty
beautiful.
Parson Ives had been very handsome in his youth, and though worn by
years (he was forty years older than his child), and by the grief of
bereavement, he was yet famous for his good looks.
Betty wore a short dark green riding-habit and a broad felt hat. She was
as much at home on horseback as on foot, and seldom in the mornings wore
a less business-like costume.
The other two occupants of the coach were to ordinary eyes less
interesting. Mistress Mary Jones was a faded woman, who had once been
pretty, a spinster, a great friend of Betty's, and one of her father's
parishioners. She was an excellent woman in her way, albeit somewhat
given to terrors both real and fanciful.
Her opposite neighbor was a man past the prime of life, owner and
breeder of large herds of cattle near Wancote, a man who, after
attending the Newbury markets, often returned home by this very coach,
and was believed to carry large sums of money in the flap-pockets of his
many-caped riding-coat.
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