From thence he went back to Buston, and entered his father's house with all that halo of happiness shining round his heart. He did not say much about it, but his mother and his sisters felt that he was altered; and he understood their feelings when his mother said to him, after a day or two, that "it was a great shame" that they none of them knew his Florence.
"But you will have to know her—well."
"That's of course; but it's a thousand pities that we should not be able to talk of her to you as one whom we know already." Then he felt that they had, among them all, acknowledged her to be such as she was.
There came to the rectory some tidings of the meeting which had taken place at the Hall between his uncle and Miss Thoroughbung. It was Joe who brought to them the first account; and then farther particulars leaked out among the servants of the two houses. Matthew was very discreet; but even Matthew must have spoken a word or two. In the first place there came the news that Mr. Prosper's anger against his nephew was hotter than ever. "Mr. Harry must have put his foot in it somehow." That had been Matthew's assurance, made with much sorrow to the house-keeper, or head-servant, at the rectory. And then Joe had declared that all the misfortunes which had attended Mr. Prosper's courtship had been attributed to Harry's evil influences. At first this could not but be a matter of joke. Joe's stories as he told them were full of ridicule, and had no doubt come to him from Miss Thoroughbung, either directly or through some of the ladies at Buntingford. "It does seem that your aunt has been too many for him." This had been said by Molly, and had been uttered in the presence both of Joe Thoroughbung and of Harry.
"Why, yes," said Joe. "She has had him under the thong altogether, and has not found it difficult to flog him when she had got him by the hind leg." This idea had occurred to Joe from his remembrance of a peccant hound in the grasp of a tyrant whip. "It seems that he offered her money."
"I should hardly think that," said Harry, standing up for his uncle.
"She says so; and says that she declared that ten thousand pounds would be the very lowest sum. Of course she was laughing at him."
"Uncle Prosper doesn't like to be laughed at," said Molly.
"And she did not spare him," said Joe. And then she had by heart the whole story, how she had called him Peter, and how angry he had been at the appellation.
"Nobody calls him Peter except my mother," said Harry.