“Yes; there has been an awful battle, and young Maubray has gone off, no one knows where, and everyone’s curious to find out—quite irreconcilable, they say.”
“Does he say what about?” inquired the old lady, taking up the letter.
“No, nothing; only that,” answered Clara.
“Mamma, Mr. Herbert’s blushing all over, like fun,” cried Master Howard from the other side of the table, with a great grin on his jam-bedaubed mouth, and his spoon pointed at poor William’s countenance.
The ladies involuntarily glanced at William, who blushed more fiercely than ever, and began to fiddle with his knife and fork. Miss Clara’s glance only, as it were, touched him, and was instantly fixed on the view through the window, in apparent abstraction. Mrs. Kincton Knox’s prominent dark eyes rested gravely a little longer on poor William’s face, and the boy waving his spoon, and kicking his chair, cried, “Ha, ha!”
“Don’t Sir, that’s extremely rude—lay down your spoon; you’re never to point at anyone, Sir. Mr. Herbert’s quite ashamed of you, and so am I.”
“Come here,” said William.
“Oh, no! you all want me to hold my tongue. It’s always so, and that great beast of a Clara,” bawled “the hope of the house,” as his mamma was wont to call him.
“Come to me,” said poor William, mildly.
“Or, if you permit me, Mr. Herbert,” said Mrs. Kincton Knox. “Howard! I can’t tolerate this. You are to sit quiet, and eat your breakfast—do you hear—and do you like sardines?—Mr. Herbert, may I trouble you—thanks; and no personalities, mind—never; Mr. Herbert, a little more tea?”