The smile on the face of Mr. Bellairs became accentuated.
“I’m ready to give Sir Jasper any guarantee,” said he.
“Deuce take him! He’s like a fellow with a card up his sleeve!” thought Sir Jasper. “Word of honour, or no word of honour, I’ll make Devlin keep watch for me.”
When they went upstairs to the splendid, neglected drawing-room where Lady Barbara Flyte, her niece, Miss Lesbia Ogle, and Mrs. Colonel Dashwood were waiting to pour out tea for them, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs showed himself in high spirits.
“Ah, Pamela, my girl!” cried he to himself, “that was an angry look you cast at me across your prayer-book this morning, a monstrous, unpeaceful kind of look to a man of good will; but if this day’s work has not wiped out old scores—A ‘filly,’ he called you. Aye, you’ll come over the fence as clean as a bird. I’ve no fear of you, my splendid girl, and you’ll be kinder to me, I dare swear, when next we meet; but that won’t be this day week, at any lodging paid for by Sir Jasper.”
“Why, la, Sir Jasper, what a merry tune!” And “Oh, Sir Jasper, what a strange, pretty place!” And, “Why, Sir Jasper, ’tis the most Christmas sight I’ve ever beheld!” And, “Pray, pray, Sir Jasper, don’t ask me to trip it with your country bumpkins, for I vow and protest I could never pick up those vulgar steps!” And, “Oh, Aunt Bab, do but look at the pink roses in Goody’s cap!” And, “Oh, Miss Ogle, you’re nowhere, I declare, beside Miss in feathers yonder, plucked from the old turkey before mother put it in the pot.” “You’re too droll, Mrs. Dashwood!” “Do you think, Sir Jasper, the buck in the top-boots would have me for his partner if I simpered ever so sweet upon him?”
Sir Jasper, moving in this fire of chatter, a lady on each arm and Miss Lesbia Ogle hanging on his coat-tails, appeared at the barn-door when he believed his guests to be assembled. The merry tune to which Lady Bab had alluded fell silent at his approach; there were curtseys and dips and bows on every side, while the three fiddlers mopped their streaming faces and, rising as one man from the wooden bench on which they had been seated in a row, duly ducked their shock heads to their patron.
Sir Jasper gave condescending smiles and short, indifferent nods right and left, the while his eyes roamed, seeking, this way and that. Here was old Mother Pounce, right enough, as large as one of her own feather beds, in a lace cap, if you please, mighty genteel, with lavender knots. And Farmer Pounce in his red waistcoat; confound the fellow, with his air of independence! Aye, was there not a sort of triumph about him? Don’t cry till you’re out of the wood, Mr. Yeoman! And split him, what a row of young Pounces—a fine healthy litter! And, ’pon honour, a monstrous pretty little chit in white muslin with a straw hat! Pshaw! He had no time to waste on silly seventeen. Where was their agreeable bone of contention; where was the handsome Pamela?
“How, now, yeoman, where is your elder daughter?”