Mr. Long seemed to think that the moment was a favourable one for resuming his stroll with Betsy; he had just taken her hand and was in the act of bowing to the three beautiful ladies who were laughing archly at Garrick, when a loud laugh that had no merriment in it sounded at the further side of a line of shrubs, and Mathews reappeared.
Betsy, with a look of apprehension, started and took a step closer to Mr. Long. Mr. Long’s face beamed with pride at that moment, for the girl’s movement suggested her confidence in his power to protect her. The ladies saw the expression that was on her face, and the glance that he cast upon her, and there was not one of them who did not envy her, although Mr. Long was sixty years old.
“Ha, Miss Linley! are you never to be found except in the company of your grandfather?” cried Mathews, while still a few paces away from the group. Then, pretending to become aware of the identity of Long at the same moment, he roared with laughter.
“I swear to you, madam, I thought that you were in the company of your grandfather,” he cried. “Sure, my error was a natural one! I ask you, Mrs. Thrale, if ’twas not natural that I should take this gentleman for Miss Linley’s grandfather?”
“Mr. Mathews,” said Mrs. Thrale, “I have no opinion on such matters, though I have my own idea of what constitutes a piece of impudence on the part of a man.”
“Ha, Grandfather Long, you hear that?” cried Mathews. “Mrs. Thrale says she knows what impudence is.”
“Then where is the need for you to give her examples of it, sir?” said Long.
“Any fool could see that she had in her eye the case of an old man who makes love to a young woman,” said Mathews brutally.
“Only a fool would take my words in such a sense, Mr. Mathews,” said Mrs. Thrale.
“Nay, good madam, ’twas but my jest,” said Mathews.