“And how did you leave the children, Mrs. Mortimer?” inquired my elder hostess. “I hope they are all quite well.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Montgomery, they are all quite well, I am happy to say. Marie Antoinette had rather a bad fall downstairs this morning, and bruised her forehead; and Gustavus Adolphus ran away with a finger-glass last night when the butler was clearing the table after a large dinner-party, and fell down with it in the hall and cut himself; but I put a plaster on, and gave him a dose of castor oil, and he is all right again to-day.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Ellie, the little one, with very round eyes, “do you give your children castor oil when they cut their fingers?”
“Certainly,” I replied. “It is a new plan that was recommended to me, and I find it answers admirably; they don’t cut themselves half so much as they used to do when I gave them cakes and lollies to make them stop crying. I should strongly advise you to try it the next time you have any accident amongst your little ones. By the way, how is your baby, Mrs. Trelawny? I met your nurse taking it for an airing in the carriage yesterday, and she said she was afraid it was cutting another tooth.”
Little Ellie was gazing out to sea, full of perplexity about the castor oil; but at this interesting question her eyes came back to me sparkling with delight. “Yes,” she said eagerly, “it cut a new tooth this morning. I heard it crying when I was in my boudoir, and I rang the bell for Mr. Trelawny, and asked him to send for the doctor. But he said ‘nonsense,’ so we didn’t send, and baby got his tooth all by himself.”
“My husband never says ‘nonsense’ to me,” broke in the elder child, drawing herself up.
This unexpected remark upset my gravity, and I had to stifle a laugh in my pocket-handkerchief. At the same time I cast about in my mind for a new topic of conversation, and happily thought of servants. Before I could broach it, however, we were interrupted by our new acquaintance, who had evidently been hanging about at no great distance from us.
“Shall I be the footman?” he said, slightly lifting his hat to me, and addressing Mrs. Montgomery, “and show this lady out?” Before any of us could answer him, he approached my chair, and continued, in quite an altered tone, “Forgive me for interrupting you again, but I really am afraid you will risk a sunstroke if you sit here any longer with that heat pouring down upon your head.”
I admitted that it was rather warm, and I got up from my chair, which he immediately removed to a shady place. And, though the little girls hoped he would go away again, he did not. To tell the truth, I did not want him to think that we wished to get rid of him (and I did not wish it); and I dare say he had the instinct to divine that, though I gave him no invitation to stay. He fell into a comfortable lounging attitude near me, and we began to talk—Mrs. Trelawny and Mrs. Montgomery nestling meanwhile upon my skirts, in silent indignation.
I hope I am not a flirt, or anything of that sort which I ought not to be. But sometimes I have my doubts. It is in my constitution, somehow, to like the society of men better than that of women; and nature, I am fain to hope, justifies herself in these matters, and does not leave us responsible. Whether it is that men are more intellectually entertaining, or more thoroughly cultured, or take more trouble to make things pleasant, I do not know; but it is certain that I have more interest, and find more sympathy (as a rule) in the conversation of my fellow-men than I do in that of my fellow-women—and particularly of my fellow-girls. I cannot help it; nor, any less, can I help betraying my preferences. It is not in me to disguise my sentiments, though I have often tried to do so. Now I am telling the truth about it, I will say one thing in my own favour—I do not want men to make love to me, as flirts are said to do; and I am quite positively sure that I never consciously encourage them in that direction. If they will do it—and, unhappily, they will sometimes—it is very tiresome, of course; and no one suffers from it more than I do. It takes all the comfort from my intercourse with them for ever after, and deprives me of my pleasantest friendships just when they begin to be valuable. I consider this unfortunate infirmity of nice men the one great drawback to my enjoyment of their society.