Oh, lucky, sweetly-perfumed, pale white rose! Oh, fortunate, kindly, tender manner! You little guess your influence over the future.
Old Mr. Amherst, who has been watching Molly from afar, now comes grumbling toward her and leads Mr. Buscarlet away.
"Grandpa is in a bad temper," says Marcia, generally, when they have quite gone.
"No, you don't say so? What a remarkable occurrence!" exclaims Cecil. "Now, what can have happened to ruffle so serene a nature as his?"
"I didn't notice it; I was making a fresh and more lengthened examination of his features. Yet, I still adhere to my original conviction: his nose is his strong point." Mr. Potts says this as one would who had given to the subject years of mature study.
"It is thin," says Lady Stafford.
"It is. Considering his antiquity, his features are really quite handsome. But his nose—his nose," says Mr. Potts, "is especially fine. That's a joke: do you see it? Fine! Why, it is sharper than an awl. 'Score two on the shovel for that, Mary Ann.'"
For want of something better to do, they all laugh at Mr. Potts's rather lame sally. Even Mr. Longshanks so far forgets himself and his allegiance to his friend as to say "Ha-ha-ha!" out loud—a proceeding so totally unexpected on the part of Longshanks that they all laugh again, this time the more heartily that they cannot well explain the cause of their merriment.
Captain Mottie is justly vexed. The friend of his soul has turned traitor, and actually expended a valuable laugh upon an outsider.
Mrs. Darley, seeing his vexation, says, quietly, "I do not think it is good form, or even kind, to speak so of poor Mr. Amherst behind his back. I cannot bear to hear him abused."