“They have been reading the parable of the one ewe lamb. They ask if Mrs. Abington has not at her feet flocks and herds which she devours at her leisure and when she has an appetite, and demand to know why she should want their one ewe lamb. They have not the wit to perceive that one may tire of beef and mutton, and so ask lamb by way of change. They are not good housekeepers. Besides, now that I come to think on’t, they have more than one ewe lamb: are they not at the point of sacrificing one of them—the flower of the flock?”
“Leaving parables out of the question, dear madam, let me ask you if you do not think that it would be to the advantage of Tom Linley to remain under the influence of his home for some years, free from the distractions of the town? I have heard that he promises to become a very great musician; but if——”
“You have some skill as a pleader, Dick. But I am thinking at this moment what it is you hope to gain by bringing me to a sense of my own iniquity in listening for an hour or two every day to the fiddling of a youth who is fresh and natural and a genius to boot.”
“What do I hope to gain?”
“Yes. I take it for granted that the eldest sister of the genius implored of you to come to me: you would not be such a fool as to come of your own accord. You know too much of the nature of women, Dick, to believe that one would relinquish even the youngest and most innocent of her adorers just when she had the satisfaction of learning that she was looked on as dangerous—so few women attain the distinction of being thought dangerous, though most of them aim at it.”
Dick laughed approvingly; he felt that it would never do for him to neglect any of the conciliatory arts of the pleader.
“Tom is, as you say, young and innocent, Mrs. Abington,” he said indulgently. “That is why I offer to you the parable of the fisherman. A good fisherman—one who fishes for sport and not for the fish-kettle—never fails to take the hook out of the jaws of a young and innocent fish, and to send it back to its sorrowing relations.”
“Faith, ’tis a pretty parable, Dick,” said she. “But how if your fisherman has been angling all the day for a fish on which he has set his heart? Failing to catch it, is he to be greatly blamed if he retain the little one which he has hooked, and try to make the most of it, dangling it at the end of the line before the onlookers?”