“She is very handsome,” interrupted Horace. “I’ll go in and have a peep. I don’t often visit mother.”
If there was a person in the whole world whom Mrs Aldworth respected, it was her stepson. She was, of course, a little bit afraid of him; she was not in the least afraid of her husband. She had led him a sorry sort of life, poor man, since he had brought her home, an exceedingly pretty, self-willed, rather vulgar little bride. Horace and Marcia had a bad time during those early days, but Marcia had a worse time than Horace, for Horace never submitted, never brooked injustice, and managed before she was a year his stepmother to turn that same little stepmother round his fingers. Marcia, luckily for herself, was sent to school when she was old enough, but Horace lived on in the house. He took up his father’s business and did well in it, and was his father’s prop and right hand.
“Horace, dear,” exclaimed Marcia, when she saw her brother.
Horace came out through the open window, bending his tall head to do so.
“Upon my word,” he said, “this is very pleasant. How nice you look, mother, and how well. Marcia, I congratulate you.”
“Horace, she has been reading me such a lecture—your poor old mother. She says that my children are so selfish.”
“A most self-evident fact,” replied Horace.
“Horace! You too?”
“Come, mother, you must acknowledge it.”
“Marcia is going to take them in hand.”