“Boys always say so,” said Mrs. Frederick Langford; “it is a—what shall I call it?—a puerile delusion, which their mammas can always defeat when they choose by a formidable list of colds and coughs; but I won’t put you in mind of how often you have sat with your feet on the fender croaking like an old raven, and solacing yourself with stick-liquorice and Ivanhoe.”
“You had better allow him to proceed in his pursuit of a cold, mamma,” said Henrietta, “just to see how grandmamma will nurse it.”
A knock at the door here put an end to the conversation, by announcing the arrival of Bennet, Mrs. Frederick Langford’s maid; who had come in such good time that Henrietta was, for once in her life, full dressed a whole quarter of an hour before dinner time. Nor was her involuntary punctuality without a reward, for the interval of waiting for dinner, sitting round the fire, was particularly enjoyed by Mr. and Mrs. Langford; and Uncle Geoffrey, therefore, always contrived to make it a leisure time; and there was so much merriment in talking over the walk, and discussing the plans for the Pleasance, that Henrietta resolved never again to miss such a pleasant reunion by her own tardiness.
Nor was the evening less agreeable. Henrietta pleased grandmamma by getting her carpet-work out of some puzzle, and by flying across the room to fetch the tea-chest: she delighted grandpapa by her singing, and by finding his spectacles for him; she did quite a praiseworthy piece of her own crochet purse, and laughed a great deal at the battle that was going on between Queen Bee and Fred about the hero of some new book. She kept her list of Uncle Geoffrey’s manifold applicants on the table before her, and had the pleasure of increasing it by two men, business unknown, who sent to ask him to come and speak to them; by a loud and eager appeal from Fred and Beatrice to decide their contest, by a question of taste on the shades of grandmamma’s carpet-work, and by her own query how to translate a difficult German passage which had baffled herself, mamma, and Fred.
However, Queen Bee’s number, fifty, had not been attained, and her majesty was obliged to declare that she meant in a week instead of a day, for which reason the catalogue was written out fair, to be continued.
Mrs. Frederick Langford thought herself well recompensed for the pain her resolution had cost her, by the pleasure that Mr. and Mrs. Langford evidently took in her son and daughter, by the brightness of her two children’s own faces, and especially when Henrietta murmured in her sleep something about “delightful,” “bright leaves and red berries,” and then, “and ‘tis for my own dear papa.”
And after all, in the attainment of their fondest wish, were Henrietta and Frederick as serenely happy as she was?
CHAPTER VI.
Christmas Eve, which was also a Saturday, dawned brightly on Henrietta, but even her eagerness for her new employment could not so far overcome her habitual dilatoriness as not to annoy her cousin, Busy Bee, even to a degree of very unnecessary fidgeting when there was any work in hand. She sat on thorns all breakfast time, devoured what her grandpapa called a sparrow’s allowance, swallowed her tea scalding, and thereby gained nothing but leisure to fret at the deliberation with which Henrietta cut her bread into little square dice, and spread her butter on them as if each piece was to serve as a model for future generations.