"And quite right, too," says Clarissa, with a cheerful little nod, seeing Mrs. Redmond has mounted her high horse and intends riding him to the death. "I myself shouldn't hesitate about it, if I only got the chance. And indeed where could any one get a more charming husband than the dear vicar."
"Well, well, it was a foolish match notwithstanding," says Mrs. Redmond, with a smile and a wan sort of blush; "though certainly at that time I don't deny he was very fascinating. Such a voice, my dear! and then his eyes were remarkably fine."
"'Were'—are, you mean," says the crafty Clarissa, knowing that praise of her husband is sweet to the soul of the faded Penelope, and that the surest means of reducing her to a pliant mood is to permit her to maunder on uninterruptedly about past glories, and dead hours rendered bright by age. To have her in her kindest humor, before mentioning the real object of her visit, must be managed, at all risks. "Yours was a love-match, wasn't it?" she says, coaxingly. "Do tell me all about it." (She has listened patiently to every word of it about a hundred times before.) "I do so like a real love-affair."
"There isn't much to tell," says Mrs. Redmond, who is quite delighted, and actually foregoes the charm of darning, that she may the more correctly remember each interesting detail in her own "old story;" "but it was all very sudden,—very; like a tornado, or a whirlwind, or those things in the desert that cover one up in a moment. First we met at two croquet-parties,—yes, two,—and then at a dinner at the Ramseys, and it was at the dinner at the Ramseys' that he first pressed my hand. I thought, my dear, I should have dropped, it was such a downright, not-to-be-got-over sort of squeeze. Dear me, I can almost feel it now," says Mrs. Redmond, who is blushing like a girl.
"Yes. Do go on," says Clarissa, who, in reality, is enjoying herself, intensely.
"Well, then, two days afterwards, to my surprise, he called with some tickets for a concert, to which my mamma, who suspected nothing, took me. There we met again, and it was there, right, as one might say, under mamma's nose, he proposed to me. He was very eloquent, though he was obliged to speak rather disconnectedly, owing to the music stopping now and then and my mamma being of a suspicious turn: but he was young in those days, my dear, and well favored, no doubt. So we got married."
"That is the proper ending to all pretty stories. But is it true," says Clarissa, with a wiliness really horrible in one so young, "that just at that time you refused a splendid offer, all for the vicar's sake?"
"Splendid is a long word," says Mrs. Redmond, trying to speak carelessly, but unmistakably elated, "yet I must confess there is some truth in the report to which you allude. Sir Hubert Fitz-Hubert was a baronet of very ancient lineage, came over with the Conqueror, or King Alfred, I quite forget which, but it was whichever was the oldest: that I know. He was, in fact, a trifle old for me, perhaps, and not so rich as others I have known, but still a baronet. He proposed to me, but I rejected him upon the spot with scorn, though he went on his knees to me, and swore in an anguished frenzy, that he would cut his throat with his razor if I refused to listen to his suit! I did refuse, but I heard nothing more about the razor. I am willing to believe he put some restraint upon his maddened feelings, and refrained from inflicting any injury upon himself."
"Poor fellow!" says Clarissa, in a suspiciously choky tone.
"Then I espoused the vicar," says Mrs. Redmond, with a sentimental sigh. "One does foolish things sometimes."