And I made as if to leave the room in a huff.
“Stop, Frank,” said the dear little old lady, rising to her feet, and speaking to me again with something of her old cordial manner—“You speak candidly; and I’ve always known you to tell the truth, so I won’t doubt you now. Perhaps things have only got into a muddle after all. Let me see if I cannot get to the bottom of it, and set them straight for you! You will not deny, I suppose, Frank, that up to a short time since you’ve been in the habit of paying a good deal of attention to Minnie Clyde?”
“Miss Clyde is nothing to me now!” I said grandly: I did not deceive her, however, nor turn her from her purpose.
“Wait a minute, my boy, and hear me out. You won’t deny that you have been what you call ‘spoony,’ in your abominable slang, eh, Frank?” she repeated, with a knowing glance from her beady black eyes.
“Pay her attention, Miss Pimpernell,” I said impetuously. “Good heavens! Why, at one time I would have died for her, and let my body be cut into little pieces, if it would only have done her any good!”
“Softly, Frank,” responded the old lady. “I don’t think that would have done her any good, or you either, for that matter! But, why have you changed towards her, Frank? I never thought you so false and fickle, my boy. She came in here to see me to-day, looking very excited and unhappy; and when she had sat down—there, in that very chair you are now sitting in,” continued Miss Pimpernell, emphasising her words by pointing to the corner I occupied, “and I asked her soothingly what distressed her, she burst into tears, and sobbed as if her little heart would break. I declare, my boy,” said the warm-hearted little body, with a husky cough, “I almost cried myself in company. However, I got it all out of her afterwards. It seems to me, Frank, that you have behaved very unkindly to her. She thought she had offended you in some way of which she declared that she was perfectly ignorant: she had asked you, she said, but you would not tell her—treating her as if she were a perfect stranger. She’s a sensitive girl, Frank, and you have hurt her feelings to the quick! Now, what is the reason of this—do you care for her still?”
“Care for her! Miss Pimpernell,” I said. “Why I love her—although I did not intend telling you yet.”
“As if I didn’t know all about that already,” said the old lady, laughing cheerily. “Oh, you lovers, you lovers! You are just for all the world like a herd of wild ostriches, that stick their heads in the bush, and fancy that they are completely concealed from observation! All of you imagine, that, because you do not take people into your confidence, they are as blind as you are! Can’t they see all that is going on well enough; don’t your very looks, much less your actions, betray you? Why, Frank, I knew all about your case weeks ago, my boy!—without any information from you or anybody else! Besides, you know, I ought to have some little experience in such matters by this time; for, every boy and girl in the parish has made me their confidante for years and years past!” and she laughed again.
Miss Pimpernell was once more her cheery old self, quite restored to her normal condition of good humour.
No one, I believe, ever saw her “put out” for more than five minutes consecutively at the outside; and very seldom for so long, at that.