Wives and Daughters

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

"Then you blame me very much? If somebody else will blame me, I sha'n't be so unhappy at what I said this morning."

"I am sure I never blamed you, not in my innermost heart, dear Lady Harriet. Blame you, indeed! That would be presumption in me."

"I think I shall set up a confessor! and it sha'n't be you, Clare, for you have always been only too indulgent to me."

After a pause she said,—"Can you give me some lunch, Clare? I don't mean to go home till three. My 'business' will take me till then, as the people at the Towers are duly informed."

"Certainly. I shall be delighted! but you know we are very simple in our habits."

"Oh, I only want a little bread-and-butter, and perhaps a slice of cold meat—you must not give yourself any trouble, Clare—perhaps you dine now? let me sit down just like one of your family."

"Yes, you shall; I won't make any alteration;—it will be so pleasant to have you sharing our family meal, dear Lady Harriet. But we dine late, we only lunch now. How low the fire is getting; I really am forgetting everything in the pleasure of this tête-à-tête!"

So she rang twice; with great distinctness, and with a long pause between the rings. Maria brought in coals.

But the signal was as well understood by Cynthia as the "Hall of Apollo" was by the servants of Lucullus. The brace of partridges that were to have been for the late dinner were instantly put down to the fire; and the prettiest china brought out, and the table decked with flowers and fruit, arranged with all Cynthia's usual dexterity and taste. So that when the meal was announced, and Lady Harriet entered the room, she could not but think her hostess's apologies had been quite unnecessary; and be more and more convinced that Clare had done very well for herself. Cynthia now joined the party, pretty and elegant as she always was; but somehow she did not take Lady Harriet's fancy; she only noticed her on account of her being her mother's daughter. Her presence made the conversation more general, and Lady Harriet gave out several pieces of news, none of them of any great importance to her, but as what had been talked about by the circle of visitors assembled at the Towers.

"Lord Hollingford ought to have been with us," she said, amongst other things; "but he is obliged, or fancies himself obliged, which is all the same thing, to stay in town about this Crichton legacy!"