“Nay, Madam, under your pleasure: the lad is great-grandson to the Queen of Bohemia, and she was without reproach. I would rather have Fred or Will than Oliver.”
Grandmamma sat extreme upright, and spoke in those measured tones, and with that nice politeness, which showed that she was excessively put out.
“May I trouble you, Charles, if you please, never to name that—person—in my hearing again!”
“Certainly, Madam,” said my Uncle Charles, with a naughty look at me which nearly upset my gravity. If I had dared to laugh, I do not know what would have happened to me.
“The age is quite levelling enough, and the scoundrels quite numerous enough, without your joining them, Mr Charles Carlingford Desborough!”
Saying which, Grandmamma arose, and as Hatty said afterwards, “swept from the room”—my Uncle Charles offering her his arm, and assuring her, with a most disconcerting look over his shoulder at us, that he would do his very best to mend his manners.
“Your manners are good enough, Sir,” said Grandmamma severely: “’tis your morals I wish to mend.”
When we thought Grandmamma out of hearing, we did laugh: and my Uncle Charles, coming down, joined us,—which I am afraid neither he nor we ought to have done.
“My mother’s infinitely put out,” said he. “Her snuff-box is empty: and she never gave me my full name but twice before, that I remember. When I am Charles Desborough, she is not pleased; when I am Mr Charles Desborough, she is gravely annoyed; but when I become Mr Charles Carlingford Desborough, matters are desperate indeed. I shall have to go to the cost of a new snuff-box, I expect, before I get forgiven. Yet I have no doubt Oliver was a pretty decent fellow—putting his politics on one side.”
“I am afraid, Uncle Charles,” said Hatty, “a snuff-box would hardly make your peace for that.”