“But that is not true, Lucy,” said Mrs. Bazalgette, with sudden dignity.
Lucy was staggered and abashed at this novel objection; recovering, she whined humbly, “but it is very nearly true.”
It was plain Lucy did not want Mr. Talboys to visit them. This decided Mrs. Bazalgette to let his dresses and him come. He would only be a foil to Mr. Hardie, and perhaps bring him on faster. Her decision once made on the above grounds, she conveyed it in characteristic colors. “No, my love; where I give my affection, there I give my confidence. I have your word not to encourage this gentleman's addresses, so why hurt your uncle's feelings by closing my door to his friend? It would be an ill compliment to you as well as to Mr. Fountain; he shall come.”
Her postscript to Mr. Fountain ran thus:
“Your friend would have been welcome independently of the foreign costumes; but as I am a very candid little woman, I may as well tell you that, now you have excited my curiosity, he will be a great deal more welcome with them than without them.”
And here I own that I, the simpleminded, should never have known all that was signified in these words but for the comment of John Fountain, Esq.
“It is all right, Talboys,” said he. “My bait has taken. You must pack up these gimcracks at once and send them off, or she'll smile like a marble Satan in your face, and stick you full of pins and needles.”
The next day Mr. Bazalgette walked into the room, haughtily overlooked the pyramid of dresses, and asked Lucy to come downstairs and see something. She put her work aside, and went down with him, and lo! two ponies—a cream-colored and a bay. “Oh, you loves!” cried the virgin, passionately, and blushed with pleasure. Her heart was very accessible—to quadrupeds.
“Now you are to choose which of these you will have.”
“Oh, Mr. Bazalgette!”