“Girl,” said Aunt Caroline—she very seldom addressed Araminta in any other style than “Girl”—“sit there and try not to behave foolishly. I am going to speak about your future.”
So little was Araminta preoccupied with things in general that she hardly knew that she had such a thing as a future. However, with her usual docility, she sat upon the chair that Aunt Caroline had indicated, and proceeded to give her best attention to her august relation.
“I will be brief,” said Aunt Caroline, with an extremely businesslike air. “My old friend Lord Cheriton has been good enough to take an interest in you, and if you are a good girl he will marry you. You have no objection, I presume?”
It was clear by Aunt Caroline’s tone that she merely asked the last question as a matter of form. But that brisk old worldling went a little too quickly for her niece Araminta, who was really a very slow-witted creature. Some little time had to pass before she could accept the purport of Aunt Caroline’s announcement. And when at last she was able to do so it literally took away her breath.
Aunt Caroline allowed the creature quite thirty seconds in which to reply. No reply being forthcoming in that space of time, she proceeded to address her as though she were a prisoner at the bar.
“Well, girl,” said Aunt Caroline, “what have you to say?”
Araminta had nothing to say apparently. But from the uppermost forehead to the depths of the neck, a slowly deepening wave of scarlet was spreading over the whole surface of her frank and vividly colored countenance.
“Humph!” said Aunt Caroline; “no objection apparently.” She then addressed a third person very succinctly. “Cheriton,” said she, “I congratulate you. You are not everybody’s choice, and I must confess to some surprise that no objection has been urged. That is the Wargrave in her, I dare say. The Wargraves have always known how to accept the inevitable. They have often gone to the scaffold rather than make a pother.”
“Family pride again, my dear Caroline,” said Cheriton, in a voice of honey. “Still, in the circumstances, perhaps a slight display of it is pardonable. History is not my strong point, but I seem to remember that between the age of Edward VI. and the age of Victoria the Wargraves went oftener to the scaffold than anywhere else. To a layman that always appears to be one of the baffling points about the pride of old families. If we go back far enough we generally find that a lawyer who was too astute to be honest established their fortunes; or a fellow who managed to cheat the troops in Flanders of their food and clothing.”
“Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline, sharply. “Remember my niece. I shall expect you to be good to her. Fortunately for herself she has no brains, but she eats well and sleeps well, she is quite healthy in every respect, and her disposition is affectionate.”