Bella had taken it into her head to receive her friends upon one particular day of the week. It was quite a new thing in Little Yafford—except for such a person as Lady Jane Gowry, who was a privileged eccentric—and had rather a foreign flavour. At the beginning of this institution visitors were slow to arrive, and Bella found it rather a dull business to sit waiting for them, looking her loveliest, in a dress just arrived from Paris, but with nobody but Mr. Piper to admire her.
‘You look uncommon pretty, my dear,’ said that devoted husband, walking up and down his blue and gold drawing-room, as restlessly as a polar bear in his cage, ‘but I can’t say that I hold with this new style of visiting. If you was to ask people to a jolly good dinner they’d be sure to come; if you asked them to a friendly tea, I dare say they’d come, though they might think it low. But you send ’em your pasteboard with “Mrs. Piper, Thursdays, At home from four to six,” and I’ll lay they don’t know what to make of it.’
‘It’s quite the right thing, Mr. Piper. In London everybody of any importance does it. And here, where the distances people have to come are so much longer, it is still more convenient.’
‘Then I suppose you’re not of any importance, my dear,’ said the provoking Mr. Piper, ‘for you see nobody comes.’
‘How can you say so, Mr. Piper,’ cried Bella, reddening with anger at this obnoxious truth. ‘Miss Coyle came last Thursday.’
‘Yes, and the Thursday before that, and the Thursday before that again. That old lady will come anywhere for the sake of a dish of scandal and a cup of strong tea.’
‘And Mrs. Dulcimer comes.’
‘Yes, I believe she has been once,’ said Mr. Piper, and then, anxious to chase the thunder-cloud from his young wife’s stormy brow, he added hastily, ‘Never mind, my lass. You’ll have a visitor this afternoon. I met Chumney this morning when I was in Great Yafford, and I asked him to drop in at five and pay his respects to you, and eat his chop with me at seven.’
‘What!’ cried Bella, ‘you have invited that vulgarian, your old cashier! Mr. Piper, I am ashamed of you. You have not a particle of self-respect.’
‘Why, what’s amiss with Chumney? The most faithful servant a man ever had. Why should I cast him off because I’ve got a pretty young wife? The first Mrs. P. never made any objection to Chumney. She never said a word about the difference in the butcher’s bill, let me bring him home as often as I might. Why should you object to him?’