“Really, sir, you ask me a question which I am quite unable to answer; young, ladies are usually reserved upon such subjects, and Fanny is especially so; but from my own observations, I am inclined to think that she likes him.”
“Umph! dare say she does; women are always fools in these cases—men too, for that matter—or else they would take pattern by me, and continue in a state of single blessedness,” then came an aside, “Single wretchedness more likely, nobody to care about one—nothing to love—die in a ditch like a beggar's dog, without a pocket-handkerchief wetted for one—there's single blessedness for you! ride in a hearse, and have some fat fool chuckling in the sleeve of his black coat over one's hard-earned money. Nobody shall do that with mine, though; for I'll leave it all to build union work-houses and encourage the slave-trade, by way of revenging myself on society at large. Wonder why I said that, when I don't think it! just like me—umph!”
“I am not at all sure but that this may prove a mere vision of our own too lively imaginations, after all,” replied I, “or that Lawless looks upon Fanny in any other light than as the sister of his old friend, and an agreeable girl to talk and laugh with; but if it should turn out otherwise, I should be sorry to think that it is a match which will not meet with your approval, sir.”
“Oh! I shall approve—I always approve of everything—I dare say he'll make a capital husband—he's very kind to his dogs and horses. Umph! silly boy, silly girl—when she could easily do better, too. Umph 1 just like me, bothering myself about other people, when I might leave it alone—silly girl though, very!”
So saying, Mr. Frampton walked away, grunting like a whole drove of pigs, as was his wont when annoyed.
The next morning I was aroused from an uneasy sleep by the sun shining brightly through my shutters, and, springing out of bed, and throwing open the window, I perceived that it was one of those lovely winter days which appear sent to assure us that fogs, frost, and snow will not last for ever, but that Nature has brighter things in store for us, if we will bide her time patiently. To think of lying in bed on such a morning was out of the question, so, dressing hastily, I threw on a shooting jacket, and sallied forth for a stroll. As I wandered listlessly through the park, admiring the hoar-frost which glittered like diamonds in the early sunshine, clothing the brave old limbs of the time-honoured fathers of the forest with a fabric of silver tissue, the conversation I had held with Mr. Frampton about Fanny and Lawless recurred to my mind. Strange that Harry Oaklands and Mr. Frampton—men so different, yet alike in generous feeling and honourable principle—should both evidently disapprove of such a union: was I myself, then, so blinded by ideas of the worldly advantages it held forth, that I was unable to perceive its unfitness? Would Lawless really prize her, as Tennyson has so well expressed it in his finest poem, as
“Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse”?
and was I about to sacrifice my sister's happiness for rank and fortune, those world-idols which, stripped of the supposititious attributes bestowed upon them by the bigotry of their worshippers, appear, in their true worth-lesaness, empty breath and perishable dross? But most probably there was no cause for uneasiness; after all, I was very likely worrying myself most unnecessarily: what proof was there that Lawless really cared for Fanny? His attentions—oh! there was nothing in that—Lawless was shy and awkward in female society, and Fanny had been kind to him, and had taken the trouble to draw him out, therefore he liked her, and preferred talking and laughing with her, rather than with any other girl with whom he did not feel at his ease. However, even if there should be anything more in it, it had not gone so far but that a little judicious snubbing would easily put an end to it—I determined, therefore, to talk to my mother about it after breakfast: she had now seen enough of Lawless to form her own opinion of him; and if she agreed with Oaklands and Mr. Frampton that his was not a style of character calculated to secure Fanny's happiness, we must let her go and stay with the Colemans, or find some other means of separating them. I had just arrived at this conclusion, when, on passing round the stem of an old tree which stood in the path, I encountered some person who was advancing rapidly in an opposite direction, meeting him so abruptly that we ran against each other with no small degree of violence.
“Hold hard there I you're on your wrong side, young fellow, and if you've done me the slightest damage, even scratched my varnish, I'll pull you up.”
“I wish you had pulled up a little quicker yourself, Lawless,” replied I, for, as the reader has doubtless discovered from the style of his address, it was none other than the subject of my late reverie with whom I had come in collision. “I don't know whether I have scratched your varnish, as you call it, but I have knocked the skin off my own knuckles against the tree in the scrimmage.”