'I hope not indeed,' said Elizabeth; 'pray, did you expect the Bishop and Clergy, and the whole town of Abbeychurch, St. Mary and St. Austin, to wait your pleasure and convenience? Anne, did you ever hear the like? Do you think Prince Rupert himself was ever so favoured and honoured?
'What do you mean?' said Rupert.
'That you have come a day too late, you idle boy!' said Anne.
'I thought next Tuesday was to have been the day of the Consecration,' said Rupert.
'Did you never get my letter?' said Anne; 'I wrote to tell you that the day was altered, and you were to meet us here on the Wednesday.'
'Can I ask you to believe a gentleman's word in opposition to a lady's?' said Rupert, looking round. 'I did indeed receive a letter from my amiable sister, full of—let me see—histories of dogs and cats, and the harvest, and old Dame Philips, and commissions for pencils, which I will produce if I have not lost the key of my portmanteau, but not one word of the Consecration.'
'But indeed I wrote a good many words about it,' said Anne; 'have you the letter, Rupert?'
'Have I the letter?' cried Rupert. 'Young ladies, did you ever hear of such overweening presumption? Here is a damsel who expects her scraps of angular writing to be preserved with as much care as the Golden Bulls of the Pope!'
'That is to say, you burnt it without reading it,' said Anne.
'The former part of your supposition is true, sweet sister mine,' replied Rupert: 'not knowing what spells it might contain, seeing that Miss Merton's caligraphy is more like the cabalistic characters of a sorceress than the Italian-hand of a gentle demoiselle, I exorcised it—I committed it to the devouring element!'