‘If you can,’ laughed Lucilla.
‘I mean, how you receive what I have told you of his views; I do not think it would be fair or kind to keep him in ignorance.’
‘Much good may it do him,’ said Lucy; ‘but I fancy you will tell him, whether I give you leave or not, and it can’t make much difference. I’ll tackle him, as the old women say, when I please, and the madder he may choose to go, the better fun it will be.’
‘I believe you are saying so to tease me’ said Phœbe; ‘but as I know you don’t mean it, I shall wait till after the party; and then, unless you have had it out with him, I shall tell him what you have said.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lucilla, ironically conveying to Phœbe’s mind the conviction that she did not believe that Robert’s attachment could suffer from what had here passed. Either she meant to grant the decisive interview, or else she was too confident in her own power to believe that he could relinquish her; at all events, Phœbe had sagacity enough to infer that she was not indifferent to him, though as the provoking damsel ran down-stairs, Phœbe’s loyal spirit first admitted a doubt whether the tricksy sprite might not prove as great a torment as a delight to Robin. ‘However,’ reflected she, ‘I shall make the less mischief if I set it down while I remember it.’
Not much like romance, but practical sense was both native and cultivated in Miss Fennimore’s pupil. Yet as she recorded the sentences, and read them over bereft of the speaker’s caressing grace, she blamed herself as unkind, and making the worst of gay retorts which had been provoked by her own home thrusts. ‘At least,’ she thought, ‘he will be glad to see that it was partly my fault, and he need never see it at all if Lucy will let him speak to her himself.’
Meantime, Honora had found from Owen that the young ladies had accepted an invitation to a very gay house in Cheshire, so that their movements would for a fortnight remain doubtful. She recurred to her view that the only measure to be taken was for him to follow them, so as to be able to interpose in any emergency, and she anxiously pressed on him the funds required.
‘Shouldn’t I catch it if they found me out!’ said Owen, shrugging his shoulders. ‘No, but indeed, Sweet Honey, I meant to have made up for this naughty girl’s desertion. You and I would have had such rides and readings together: I want you to put me on good terms with myself.’
‘My dear boy! But won’t that best be done by minding your sister? She does want it, Owen; the less she will be prudent for herself, the more we must think for her!’
‘She can do better for herself than you imagine,’ said Owen. ‘Men say, with all her free ways, they could not go the least bit farther with her than she pleases. You wouldn’t suppose it, but she can keep out of scrapes better than Rashe can—never has been in one yet, and Rashe in twenty. Never mind, your Honor, there’s sound stuff in the bonny scapegrace; all the better for being free and unconventional. The world owes a great deal to those who dare to act for themselves; though, I own, it is a trial when one’s own domestic womankind take thereto.’