“Indeed!” said her mother, in freezing accents—down to the temperature of the best Wenham Lake ice!—“I’m sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still, you know, Minnie,” she continued, “that I do not like you receiving presents in this way.”
“But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!” I said, at last nerved up to the speaking-point. I thought she would have told me then and there to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would say next.
“And he’s such a little darling, mamma!” interposed Min impulsively.
Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.
“That may be quite true, my dear,” she said; “but, as you know, and as Mr Lorton is probably also aware—although he is very young to have as yet mixed much in the world”—cut number two!—“it is not quite correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they have been but barely introduced!”—cut three!
“Oh, mamma!” said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame. She coloured up to the eyes—at the dread of having done something she ought not to have done.
Her exclamation armed me to the teeth. I would have stood up in defence of my darling against a hundred mammas, all cased in society’s best satire-proof steel. I determined to “carry the war into Egypt,” and opened fire accordingly.
“Pardon me, Mrs Clyde,” said I, quite as frigidly as herself—“but the fault, if error there be on either side, lies on my shoulders. I am sure I meant no harm. I only brought the little bird as a remembrance of your daughter’s birthday, having forgotten to present it yesterday, when her other friends made their offerings.”
My speech, however, produced no impression; she quickly parried my weak thrust, returning me tierce en carte.
“But they were all old friends, Mr Lorton:—that made it quite a different thing,” she said, very coldly, although with the sweetest expression. I daresay Jael smiled very pleasantly when she drove that nail into Sisera’s temple!