“Stop it, my dear?” he said smiling sadly. “Ah, if you knew your aunt as well as I do you would never check her murmurs; they carry off her ill-temper. No, no, my dear, it would be dangerous to stop it. I always let it go on.”
There was no need to check Mrs Trampleasure after all. Mr Bayle threw himself into the breach, and made her forget her own troubles by consulting her about some changes that he proposed making in the parish.
That changed the course of her thoughts, and in the intervals of the music, and often during the progress of some song, she alluded to different matters that had given her annoyance ever since she had been a girl.
It was not an agreeable duty, that of keeping Mrs Trampleasure amused, but Millicent rewarded him with a grateful smile, and Bayle was content.
There was a pleasant little supper that was announced unpleasantly just as Miss Heathery had consented to sing again, and was telling the assembly in a bird-like voice how gaily the troubadour touched his guita-h-ah, as he was hastening home from the wah.
“Supper’s ready,” said a loud, harsh voice, which cut like an arrow right through Miss Heathery’s best note.
“Now you shouldn’t, Thisbe,” said Mrs Luttrell in tones of mild reproach; but the reproof was not heard, for the door was sharply closed.
“It is only our Thisbe’s way, Mr Bayle,” whispered Mrs Luttrell; “please don’t notice it. Excellent servant, but so soon put out.”
She nodded confidentially, and then stole out on tiptoe, so as not to interrupt Miss Heathery, who went on—“singing from Palestine hither I come,” to the end.
Then words of reproof and sharp retort could be heard outside; and after a while poor Mrs Luttrell came back looking very red, to lean over the curate from behind the sofa, brooding over him as if he were a favourite chicken.