Fanny's First Novel

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Her father and stepmother sat stolidly by, but she knew that had she and her father been alone, he would at least have smiled with her.

In a few minutes she had recovered herself sufficiently to be able to apologize for her levity.

“I beg your pardon,” she said. “I am behaving like a goose, but I could not help it—something forced me—something that occurred to me—a funny thing. I am very sorry.”

“There is nothing funny that I can see in the honourable request made by an honest young man, my dear Fanny,” said Mrs. Burney.

“No, no; nothing whatever; only—well, funny ideas will occur to foolish people like myself at the most serious moments,” said Fanny.

“That is quite true, indeed,” said her father. “I have myself experienced what you say. Perhaps, after all, I should not have blurted out what I had to tell you—it came to you as a surprise, I doubt not.”

“A great surprise, indeed,” she replied. “I cannot understand how Mr. Barlowe could ever fancy that I—that he—that—oh, I should have known what that terrible entertainment was meant to lead to—but when, in that clumsily marked way I was sent into the drawing-room with him alone, he began to talk of his uncle, the Aider-man—he said that the Alderman was quite approachable even in regard to ordinary people like ourselves—and then came his cousins—all of them remarkable! But you should have seen him slice away at the ham—the biggest ham I ever saw—it needed to be—such eating!”

“The recollection of that no doubt made you laugh,” said Dr. Burney. “But, at the same time, you must remember that though the customs of the Poultry are not ours, still, they may be very reasonable customs—perhaps more reasonable than our own. It may suit us to dine as late as halfpast four and only to have a slice of cake with our tea; but business people find it more convenient to dine at one o'clock—it makes an equal division of their long working-day—so that a slice of ham——”

“I know that is quite true, and I was not so foolish as to give myself airs because I had dined at half-past four and had no appetite for ham,” said Fanny; “but—oh, mother, you saw how foolishly formal was the whole thing.”

“I said that I thought it quite unnecessarily formal,” replied Mrs. Burney, “and if I had had any notion that it was going to be like that I would certainly have given Mrs. Barlowe a hint. Still, Thomas is, I know, an excellent young man who has never given his parents an hour's uneasiness, and his intentions are honourable, and so should be honoured. If you have no tender regard for him at present that is no reason why, when you get accustomed to the thought of him as a suitor for your hand——”