“If you bring a nice, aristocratic sister-in-law to our house, Edward, I’ll love you better than ever, if such a thing can be.”
His answer was a sigh, for he was thinking of one who even then was tossing on the angry waves of Long Island Sound.
And putting on his overcoat, with an umbrella to shelter him over the walk, he stepped into his own carriage, which he had ordered out, and gave the driver the number and avenue on which Mr. Legare resided.
He found all the family at home, and met the new cousin, whom he had never seen before. He was warmly welcomed, and as Mr. Legare insisted on his passing the evening there, he permitted him to have his carriage and horses sent around to the capacious stables in the rear of the mansion.
When he told them that he had been sent by Miss Hattie Butler to tell them she had been called away suddenly by the illness of a near relative, and that even then she was on her way to Boston by the night boat, every one of the family joined him in his expressed anxiety about the storm—a wild, sleety north-easter, which could be heard in its fury even inside the marble walls of the grand mansion.
“Alone, without any escort; she’ll be just scared to death,” said Frank. “I wish I was there.”
“You’d be worse frightened than she’ll be,” said Lizzie. “She is brave—very brave, I know.”
“Pooh—she is only a woman, and all women are cowards when danger is around,” said Frank, in his important way.
“Allow me to differ with you, Mr. Legare,” said Mr. W——, promptly. “I believe that the female sex, as a generality, have far more moral courage than men. And what is physical courage but that of the brute? Nine times out of ten those who possess it hold it more on their ignorance of danger than anything else.”
“There, Mr. Frank Legare, you’re answered, and I hope you’ve got enough of it. Women cowards, indeed! That shows what you know about them.”