'Did she give it you?' said Felix.
'No, I whipped it up when she dropped it. There's something about Ratton in it.'
Felix quietly took the paper out of her hand, folded it, and put it into an envelope. 'You take it back to her the first thing to-morrow,' he said. 'Now go to bed.'
Angela durst not oppose that tone, so unusually serious and authoritative; but she contrived to prolong her good-nights, and the putting away of her goods, with a kind of half droll, half sullen resignation; and just as Wilmet was hurrying her off, Edgar returned. He always spoilt Angela a little, and she sprang to him with a kind of droll pout. 'You'll not be cross, Edgar. You'll let us hear Alice's transmigrations. Look! here's Felix bottled them up in an envelope, and won't let us peep at them! But you'll let me hear. You won't order me off to bed.'
Cherry fancied she saw a disconcerted look on his face when he saw the envelope held up to him; but if so, it instantly gave place to the mischievous entertainment of defeating a lesson on discretion.—'The heads of the family must assert themselves sometimes, my dear, even about nothing,' he said consolingly.
'Indeed,' said Wilmet, bristling in defence of Felix, 'of course we knew it was nothing. It was only very ill-mannered and wrong of Angela to go prying into what was not meant to be shown.'
'I'm sure,' said Edgar most ungratefully, 'it might be posted on the church door for what I care, except for its intrinsic vileness.'
'Oh, let's have it! let's have it!' burst out Lance and Robina, who had been burning with curiosity all the time.
'Don't let us have them murdered, whatever they are,' said Edgar, taking them into his own hand. 'Pity the sorrows of a poor wretch seduced into one of your horrid jeux d'esprit—a lady's excuse for fishing for compliments that sound more than they mean. Here goes, then:—
'Say, Lady, what existence past
Thine essence hath enfolded;
What humble antecedent cast
Thy present self hath moulded.
'The hawthorn bush, with blossom white
Veiling her branches pricking;
The painted lady, fluttering light,
The rash pursuer tricking.
'Grass paraquit, who loves to sit
In clustering rows and chat on;
Caressing, purring, traitor kit,
Fatal to Master Ratton.