“I am sure ’tis six. Why come you no oftener?”
“I have my duties,” said Aubrey in a rather constrained voice.
“Closer than to thy mother, my boy?” asked Edith softly.
“Prithee harry not him,” retorted Aunt Temperance. “Hast thou not heard, he hath his duties? To hold skeins of silk whilst my Lady winds them, maybe, and to ride the great horse, and play tennis and shuttlecock with his Lord, and to make up his mind to which of all his Lady’s damsels he’ll make love o’ the lightest make.”
“Aubrey, I do hope you are ne’er thinking of marriage!” said his mother’s querulous voice. “Thou shouldst be put out of thine office, most like, and not a penny to keep her, and she saddled upon us that—”
“That’ll kick and throw her, as like as not,” said Aunt Temperance by way of interjection.
“I ensure you, Mother, I have no expectations of the kind. ’Tis but Aunt Temperance that—that—”
“That sometimes hits the white, Sir, if she do now and then shoot aside o’ the mark. Howbeit, hold thou there. And if thou want leave to carry on thine acquaintance with these gentlemen, bring them to see us. I’ll lay mine head to an orange I see in ten minutes if they be true men or no.”
“What business have they?” asked Edith.
Aubrey hesitated. He knew of none except Garnet’s pretended profession of horse-dealing.