“Whate’er we do, we all are doing this—
Reaping the harvest of our yesterdays,
Sowing for our to-morrows.”
S.V. Partridge.
On the following evening, Aubrey put in an appearance at the White Bear. As soon as he entered, he gave a quick, troubled look round the parlour, before he went up to kiss his grandmother’s hand. His Aunt Temperance greeted him with, “Give you good even, my Lord Chamberlain! Lancaster and Derby! do but look on him! Blue feather in his hat—lace ruff and ruffles—doublet of white satin with gold aglets—trunk hose o’ blue velvet, paned with silver taffeta—garters of blue and white silk—and I vow, a pair o’ white silken hose, and shoes o’ Spanish leather. Pray you, my Lord, is your allowance from the King’s Majesty five hundred pounds or a thousand by the year?”
“Now, Aunt, you know,” said Aubrey, laughing. “That thou art a spendthrift?” answered she. “Ay, I do: and if thou run not into debt this side o’ Christmas, my name is not Temperance Murthwaite.”
“I’m not in debt a penny,” retorted he.
“Then somebody must have given thee thy pantofles,” replied she. “Be they a cast-off pair of his Majesty’s, or did my Lord Oxford so much alms to thee?”
Aubrey laughed again, as merrily as if he had not a care nor a fault in the world.
“They cost not so much as you reckon,” he said.
“Four yards of velvet,” calculated Aunt Temperance—“you’ll not do it under, stuffed that wise of bombast, nor buy that quality, neither, under eighteen shillings the yard—let’s see,—that is three pounds twelve shillings: silver taffeta, a yard and an half, twenty-two and sixpence—that’s four pounds fourteen and six; then the lining, dowlas, I suppose, at fourteen pence—”
“They are lined with perpetuana, Aunt,” answered Aubrey, who seemed greatly amused by this reckoning.
“Perpetuana—lining? Thou reckless knave! Three-and-fourpence the yard at the least—well, we’ll say ten shillings—five pounds four and six: and the lace, at four shillings by the ounce, and there’ll be two ounces there, good: five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence, as I’m a living woman! ’Tis sinful waste, lad: that’s what it is. Your father never wore such Babylonian raiment, nor your grandfather neither, and there was ten times the wisdom and manliness in either of them that there’ll ever be in you, except you mean to turn your coat ere you are a month elder.”