“Aren’t you, dear?” said Lady Rea; “and I thought him such a nice, gentlemanly, frank fellow, and so did the girls.”
“Sadly wanting in manners,” said Aunt Matty. “Quite as you said, Hampton—rough and uncultivated.”
Sir Hampton nodded his head approvingly.
“But he don’t call out ‘avast!’ and ‘Ship ahoy!’ and ‘Haul in slack,’ as you said he would, aunty,” said Fin.
“Finetta, I never made use of any such language,” said Miss Matilda.
“Then it must have been I,” said Fin. “I know somebody said so.”
“Most gentlemanly men the friends you introduced, Hampton—especially Captain Vanleigh.”
“And the dog-fancier with the glass,” put in Fin, in an undertone; but her aunt heard her.
“Hampton,” she said, viciously, “I am unwilling to make complaints, but I am sorry to say that the treatment I receive from Finetta is anything but becoming. Several times this afternoon her remarks to me have been such as when I was a little girl I should never have thought of using, and I should have been severely reprimanded if I had said a tithe.”
“Why, I thought tithes were parsons’ payments, aunty,” said Fin, merrily; and Aunt Matty stopped short, Lady Rea turned away to smile, and Sir Hampton actually chuckled.