CHAPTER II.
Jenny looked, if possible, lovelier than usual as she tripped downstairs beside her mother and her aunt. Her face was still flushed from sleep, and her hair had been twisted up anyhow, whilst the pale blue gown she wore accorded well with her rose-leaf complexion. Mrs Crampton and Miss Bostock accompanied her in trembling dread of the coming encounter, but the girl herself was perfectly confident and fearless. As they reached the door of the library, where her father awaited her, she caught sight of Aunt Clem’s visage and burst out laughing.
‘Oh, dear!’ she cried, ‘Aunt Clem, if you don’t put on some other kind of face, you’ll kill me! When you assume that lugubrious expression, you look so like a cow that I always expect to hear you low.’
‘Dearest child! that is not kind,’ remarked her mother, with mild reproof.
‘Oh! never mind, it doesn’t signify, I am sure dear Jenny doesn’t mean it,’ interposed Aunt Clem, who had, nevertheless, winced under the sarcasm.
‘I did mean it, though,’ cried Jenny boldly; ‘one would think I was going to be hanged to see your long faces. Well, papa!’ she continued, as they entered the presence of Mr Crampton, ‘and what may you have to say to me this morning? You’ll have to pay for dragging me out of my bed in this outrageous manner, you know, and I sha’n’t be pacified until you buy me that little Arab mare of Mr Winchers’. Is it a bargain?’
She looked so saucy and so pretty as she said this, and perched herself on her father’s knee, that Mr Crampton, in his pride and affection, was very nearly granting her request without further protest. But the remembrance of the Popish admirer intruded itself just in time to prevent the folly. Nevertheless, he kissed his daughter’s blooming cheek, and said,—
‘If you will be a good girl, and do exactly as I tell you, you shall have a dozen Arab mares if they will please you, Jenny.’
‘All right, old gentleman! that’s a bargain. Now for the conditions.’
‘But we must speak seriously, my dear, for I am quite in earnest in this matter. You have been encouraging a young man to come about here, Jenny, of whose acquaintanceship you know I do not approve—I mean Mr Frederick Walcheren. Now, I must have a stop put to it at once. He never comes here again, nor will I allow you to meet him out of the house, unless it should be by accident, nor to dance with him if you do meet him. I hope you understand me plainly. I will not permit you to know any of the Walcherens from this time forward. You must entirely drop them. Nor shall your mother ask them to my house. And I shall never remove this prohibition from you—never!’