He now, on seeing Hester in the parlour, came up to the window with a bunch of roses in one hand and the newspaper in the other. He brought news that the pyrus japonica looked drooping, and that a company of ants had found their way to the apricot at the back of the house. There must be an end to them, or there would be an end to the apricots for this year.
“You have found nothing so important to us as that in the newspaper, I dare say,” observed his wife.
Mr. Berkeley threw the paper in at the window, peevishly declaring that there was nothing in newspapers worth reading now-a-days. He forgot that he did not think so at noon-time every day, when he was apt to swear at the offender who happened to be five minutes past the time of bringing the paper.
“There is one piece of news, by the by,” said he, “unless you have heard it already from Craig. Longe is married.”
“Indeed! To Miss Egg?”
“No, no. Too good a match for him by half. A fellow who begins looking about him so impudently as he did, is sure to finish with marrying his cook.”
“His cook! What, the servant that went from the Cavendishes. It never can be, surely?”
“Nay; I do not know whose cook she is, or whether any body’s cook. I only know that such is the way such fellows pair themselves at last.”
Hester was wondering what fellows;—rectors, or Cavendishes’ cousins.—Mrs. Berkeley remarked, that she should wish to think well of the rector’s lady for Henry Craig’s sake. The curate should never be the worse off for the marriage of his rector.
“The curate’s wife, you mean, my dear. You are looking forward to little presents of tithe pigs and apples, and an occasional pheasant. But, mind you, I will never touch a pheasant that comes out of Longe’s house. I had rather be in the way of his gun myself.”