‘Let it alone.’
‘If you don’t care for dear papa and mamma, I do,’ said Owen, the tears coming into his eyes.
‘I’m not going to rake it up to please Honora,’ returned his sister. ‘If you like to go and poke with her over places where things never happened, you may, but she shan’t meddle with my real things.’
‘You are very unkind,’ was the next accusation from Owen, much grieved and distressed, ‘when she is so good and dear, and was so fond of our dear father.’
‘I know,’ said Lucilla, in a tone he did not understand; then, with an air of eldership, ill assorting with their respective sizes, ‘You are a mere child. It is all very well for you, and you are very welcome to your Sweet Honey.’
Owen insisted on hearing her meaning, and on her refusal to explain, used his superior strength to put her to sufficient torture to elicit an answer. ‘Don’t, Owen! Let go! There, then! Why, she was in love with our father, and nearly died of it when he married; and Rashe says of course she bullies me for being like my mother.’
‘She never bullies you,’ cried Owen, indignantly; ‘she’s much kinder to you than you deserve, and I hate Ratia for putting it into your head, and teaching you such nasty man’s words about my own Honor.’
‘Ah! you’ll never be a man while you are under her. She only wants to keep us a couple of babies for ever—sending us to bed, and making such a figure of me;’ and Lucy relieved her feelings by five perpendicular leaps into the air, like an India-rubber ball, her hair flying out, and her eyes flashing.
Owen was not much astonished, for Lucy’s furies often worked off in this fashion; but he was very angry on Honor’s account, loving her thoroughly, and perceiving no offence in her affection for his father; and the conversation assumed a highly quarrelsome character. It was much to the credit of masculine discretion that he refrained from reporting it when he joined Honora in the morning’s walk to Wrapworth churchyard. Behold! some one was beforehand with them—even Lucilla and the curate!
The wearisome visit was drawing to a close when Captain Charteris began—‘Well, Miss Charlecote, have you thought over my proposal?’