you—that was mean.”
FRANK (ingenuously).—“You can’t be more ashamed, Mother, than I was when they gave me the prize.”
MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity over temper).—“I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize.”
Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank’s neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs. Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an “aside,” “But we are forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people—don’t you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?”
MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).—“Suppose you write the note yourself? Meanwhile I shall see him, no doubt.”
PARSON (putting his hand on the squire’s shoulder).—“You forgive my impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when we honour and love folks as I do.”
“Fish,” said the squire; but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite of himself. “You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet of my—”
“Brother’s,” quoth the parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the squire would not correct the parson, as he had been about to correct himself.
Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly. “The cruellest trump, Captain Higginbotham!” said he sternly, and stalked by-majestic.
The night was so fine that the parson and his wife, as they walked home, made a little detour through the shrubbery.
MRS. DALE.—“I think I have done a good piece of work to-night.”
PARSON (rousing himself from a revery).—“Have you, Carry?—it will be a very pretty handkerchief.”
MRS. DALE.—“Handkerchief?—nonsense, dear. Don’t you think it would be a very happy thing for both if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought together?”
PARSON.—“Brought together!”
MRS. DALE.—“You do snap up one so, my dear; I mean if I could make a match of it.”
PARSON.—“I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain.”
MRS. DALE (smiling loftily).—“Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima’s fortune about L4000?”
PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted revery).—“Ay—ay—I dare say.”
MRS. DALE.—“And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly L6000 by this time; eh! Charles dear, you really are so—good gracious, what’s that!”
As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the shrubbery into the village green.
PARSON.—“What’s what?”
MRS. DALE (pinching her husband’s arm very nippingly). “That thing—there—there.”
PARSON.—“Only the new stocks, Carry; I don’t wonder they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the squire.”
CHAPTER XIII
[Supposed to be a letter from Mrs. Hazeldean to A. Riccabocca, Esq., The Casino; but, edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima Hazeldean.]
DEAR SIR,—To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir, make us the amende honorable, and give us the pleasure of your company for a few days at the Hall. May we expect you Saturday next?—our dinner hour is six o’clock.
With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima Hazeldean, believe me, my dear sir,
Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs. Hazeldean had very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the stable-yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for riding, with more than his usual dandyism, came into the yard, calling for his pony in a loud voice; and singling out the very groom whom Miss Jemima was addressing—for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the squire’s stables—told him to saddle the gray pad and accompany the pony.
“No, Frank,” said Miss Jemima, “you can’t have George; your father wants him to go on a message,—you can take Mat.”
“Mat, indeed!” said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch on his boots,—besides, he called Frank “Master,” and obstinately refused to trot down hill,—“Mat, indeed! let Mat take the message, and George go with me.”
But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat’s foible was not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants’ hall. Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the squire and his wife entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both the contending parties.
The squire looked with great contempt on his son. “And what do you want a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?”
FRANK.—“No, Sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to a gentleman!”
SQUIRE (in high wrath).—“You precious puppy! I think I’m as good a gentleman as you any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw me ride to call on a neighbour with a fellow jingling at my heels, like that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton mill. First time I ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery coat was necessary to prove his gentility!”
MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank colouring, and about to reply).—“Hush, Frank, never answer your father,—and you are going to call on Mr. Leslie?”
“Yes, ma’am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me,” said Frank, taking the squire’s hand.
“Well, but, Frank,” continued Mrs. Hazeldean, “I think you heard that the Leslies were very poor.”
FRANK.—“Eh, Mother?”
MRS. HAZELDEAN.—“And would you run the chance of wounding the pride of a gentleman as well born as yourself by affecting any show of being richer than he is?”
SQUIRE
