“Oh, Matty,” cried Lady Rea, “I’m sure that young man is as nice as can be.”
“If that was what you intended to say, Matilda—er-rum—it would have been most indecent before those children,” said Sir Hampton, pompously.
“In—”
Aunt Matty could not say it, the word was too outrageous.
“I feel bound—er-rum—bound,” said Sir Hampton, with emphasis, “to ask the young man, as a proprietor, even as we might ask a tenant, Fanny.”
“Yes, my love.”
“Put down that lawyer as well, Mr—er, er—Mr—” he got the name out with great disgust at last, “Pratt,” and carefully wiped his mouth afterwards.
“You’ll be sorry for this, Hampton,” said Miss Matilda, shaking with virtuous indignation, so that some frozen dewdrops in her head-dress quivered again, and Pepine, who had been surreptitiously nursed under a canopy of table-cloth, received, in her excitement, such a heavy nip from his mistress’s knees, that he uttered an awful howl.
“Er-rum—sorry?”
“Yes, sorry. That objectionable person is always hanging about the house like—like—like a vagrant; and those girls never go for a walk without being accosted by him or his companion. If you have any eyes, you ought to see.”