N. Not I—'tis he
That, changing to my thought, has changed my mind. No man puts rotten apples in his pouch Because their upper side looked fair to him. Constancy in mistake is constant folly.
The news that the rich heir of the Transomes was actually come back, and had been seen at Treby, was carried to some one else who had more reasons for being interested in it than the Reverend Rufus Lyon was yet conscious of having. It was owing to this that at three o'clock, two days afterward, a carriage and pair, with coachman and footman in crimson and drab, passed through the lodge gates at Transome Court. Inside there was a hale, good-natured-looking man of sixty, whose hands rested on a knotted stick held between his knees; and a blue-eyed, well-featured lady, fat and middle-aged—a mountain of satin, lace, and exquisite muslin embroidery. They were not persons of a highly remarkable appearance, but to most Trebians they seemed absolutely unique, and likely to be known anywhere. If you had looked down upon them from the box of Sampson's coach, he would have said, after lifting his hat, "Sir Maximus and his lady—did you see?" thinking it needless to add the surname.
"We shall find her greatly elated, doubtless," Lady Debarry was saying. "She has been in the shade so long."
"Ah, poor thing!" said Sir Maximus. "A fine woman she was in her bloom. I remember the first county ball she attended we were all ready to fight for the sake of dancing with her. I always liked her from that time—I never swallowed the scandal about her myself."
"If we are to be intimate with her," said Lady Debarry, "I wish you would avoid making such allusions, Sir Maximus. I should not like Selina and Harriet to hear them."
"My dear, I should have forgotten all about the scandal, only you remind me of it sometimes," retorted the baronet, smiling and taking out his snuff-box.
"These sudden turns of fortune are often dangerous to an excitable constitution," said Lady Debarry, not choosing to notice her husband's epigram. "Poor Lady Alicia Methurst got heart-disease from a sudden piece of luck—the death of her uncle, you know. If Mrs. Transome was wise she would go to town—she can afford it now, and consult Dr. Truncheon. I should say myself he would order her digitalis: I have often guessed exactly what a prescription would be. But it certainly was one of her weak points to think she understood medicine better than other people."
"She's a healthy woman enough, surely: see how upright she is, and she rides about like a girl of twenty."
"She is so thin that she makes me shudder."
"Pooh! she's slim and active; women are not bid for by the pound."