“Scarcely that, I hope,” returned Rose, smiling; “but there is some difference between being mercenary and regretting that we are so poor that we shall be unable to live together: is there not, Lewis dear?”
“Unable to live together?” repeated Lewis slowly. “Yes, well, I may of course be obliged to leave you, but I shall not accept any employment which will necessitate my quitting England, so I shall often come and take a peep at you.”
“Oh! but, Lewis love, it is worse than that—we shall not be able to—— Hush! here comes mamma; we will talk about this another time.”
“Why, Lewis,” exclaimed Mrs. Arundel, entering the room with a light elastic step, without a trace of her late emotion visible on her animated countenance, “what is this? Here’s Rachel complaining that you have brought a wild beast with you, which has eaten up all the tea-cakes.”
“Let alone fright’ning the blessed cat so that she’s flowed up the chimley like a whirlpool, and me a’most in fits all the time, the brute! But I’ll not sleep in the house with it, to be devoured like a cannibal in my quiet bed, if there was not another sitivation in Sussex!” And here Rachel, a stout serving-woman, with a face which, sufficiently red by nature, had become the deepest crimson from fear and anger, burst into a flood of tears, which, mingling with a tolerably thick deposit of soot, acquired during the hurried rise and progress of the outraged cat, imparted to her the appearance of some piebald variety of female Ethiopian Serenader.
“Rachel, have you forgotten me?” inquired Lewis, as soon as he could speak for laughing. “What are you crying about? You are not so silly as to be afraid of a dog? Here, Faust, where are you?” As he spoke he uttered a low, peculiar whistle; and in obedience to his signal a magnificent Livonian wolf-hound, which bore sufficient likeness to the animal it was trained to destroy to have alarmed a more discriminating zoologist than poor Rachel, sprang into the room, and, delighted at rejoining his master, began to testify his joy so roughly as not only to raise the terror of that damsel to screaming point, but to cause Mrs. Arundel to interpose a chair between herself and the intruder, while Rose, pale but silent, shrank timidly into a corner of the apartment. In an instant the expression of Lewis’s face changed; his brow contracted, his mouth grew stern, and fixing his flashing eyes upon those of the dog, he uttered in a deep, low voice some German word of command; and as he spoke the animal dropped at his feet, where it crouched in a suppliant attitude, gazing wistfully at his master’s countenance, without offering to move.
“You need not have erected a barricade to defend yourself, my dear mother,” said Lewis, as a smile chased the cloud which had for a moment shaded his features; “the monster is soon quelled. Rose, you must learn to love Faust—he is my second self; come and stroke him.”
Thus exhorted, Rose approached and patted the dog’s shaggy head, at first timidly, but more boldly when she found that he still retained his crouching posture, merely repaying her caresses by fixing his bright, truthful eyes upon her face lovingly, and licking his lips with his long red tongue.
“Now, Rachel,” continued Lewis, “it is your turn; come, I must have you good friends with Faust.”
“No, I’m much obliged to you, sir, I couldn’t do it, indeed—no disrespect to you, Mr. Lewis, though you have growed a man in foreign parts. I may be a servant of all work, but I didn’t engage myself to look after wild beasts, sir. No! nor wouldn’t, if you was to double my wages, and put the washin’ out—I can’t abear them.”