Cecilia, charmed at a reception so ingenuously affectionate, soon satisfied her doubting diffidence by the warmest thanks that she had preserved so much regard for her, and by doubling the kindness with which she returned her caresses.
“Mercy on me, madam,” cried Mrs Belfield, who during this time had been busily employed in sweeping the hearth, wiping some slops upon the table, and smoothing her handkerchief and apron, “why the girl's enough to smother you. Henny, how can you be so troublesome? I never saw you behave in this way before.”
“Miss Beverley, madam,” said Henrietta, again retreating, “is so kind as to pardon me, and I was so much surprised at seeing her, that I hardly knew what I was about.”
“The young ladies, ma'am,” said Mr Hobson, “have a mighty way of saluting one another till such time as they get husbands: and then I'll warrant you they can meet without any salutation at all. That's my remark, at least, and what I've seen of the world has set me upon making it.”
This speech led Cecilia to check, however artless, the tenderness of her fervent young friend, whom she was much teized by meeting in such company, but who seemed not to dare understand the frequent looks which she gave her expressive of a wish to be alone with her.
“Come, ladies,” continued the facetious Mr Hobson, “what if we were all to sit down, and have a good dish of tea? and suppose, Mrs Belfield, you was to order us a fresh round of toast and butter? do you think the young ladies here would have any objection? and what if we were to have a little more water in the tea-kettle? not forgetting a little more tea in the teapot. What I say is this, let us all be comfortable; that's my notion of things.”
“And a very good notion too,” said Mrs Belfield, “for you who have nothing to vex you. Ah, ma'am, you have heard, I suppose, about my son? gone off! nobody knows where! left that lord's house, where he might have lived like a king, and gone out into the wide world nobody knows for what!”
“Indeed?” said Cecilia, who, from seeing him in London concluded he was again with his family, “and has he not acquainted you where he is?”
“No, ma'am, no,” cried Mrs Belfield, “he's never once told me where he is gone, nor let me know the least about the matter, for if I did I would not taste a dish of tea again for a twelvemonth till I saw him get back again to that lord's! and I believe in my heart there's never such another in the three kingdoms, for he has sent here after him I dare say a score of times. And no wonder, for I will take upon me to say he won't find his fellow in a hurry, Lord as he is.”
“As to his being a Lord,” said Mr Hobson, “I am one of them that lay no great stress upon that, unless he has got a good long purse of his own, and then, to be sure, a Lord's no bad thing. But as to the matter of saying Lord such a one, how d'ye do? and Lord such a one, what do you want? and such sort of compliments, why in my mind, it's a mere nothing, in comparison of a good income. As to your son, ma'am, he did not go the right way to work. He should have begun with business, and gone into pleasure afterwards and if he had but done that, I'll be bold to say we might have had him at this very minute drinking tea with us over this fireside.”