“What does your mother say to this drawing, Hester?” inquired Mr. Craig, when he saw the latter[latter] becoming desperate.
“She thinks it the best I have done; and she desired me to study variety above all things; and it is because it is so unlike all the rest that she likes it best.”
Enoch took the drawing out of her hands at these words, to give the matter another consideration.
“Do persuade him,” whispered Hester to the curate. “You do not know how people begin to laugh at his frontispieces for being all alike; all the ladies with tiny waists, and all the gentlemen with their heads turned half round on their shoulders. Do not be afraid. He is so deaf he will not know what we are saying.”
“Indeed! I was not aware of that.”
“No, because he is accustomed to your voice in church. He begins to say,—for he will not believe that he is deaf,—that you are the only person in Haleham that knows how to speak distinctly, except the fishwoman, and the crier, and my mother, who suits her way of speaking to his liking exactly. But, Sir, the people in London laughed sadly at the frontispiece to ‘Faults acknowledged and amended.’”
“What people in London?”
“O! the people,—several people,—I know a good deal about the people in London, and they understand about such things much better than we do.”
“Then I wish that, instead of laughing at you for drawing as you are bid, they would employ you to design after your own taste. You are fit for a much higher employment than this, and I wish you had friends in London to procure it for you.”
Hester blushed, and sparkled, and looked quite ready to communicate something, but refrained and turned away.