“Oh, I forgot that. Then will you tell her, mamma, that I will send her a great quantity?”
“How, my dear?”
“I don’t know, mamma, yet—but I will find out some way.”
“Would it not be as well, my dear,” said his mother, smiling, “to consider how you can perform your promises before you make them?”
“A gentleman,” said Mr. Vincent, “never makes a promise that he cannot perform.”
“I know that very well,” said the boy, proudly: “Miss Portman, who is very good-natured, will, I am sure, be so good, when she goes back to Lady Delacour, as to carry food for the gold fishes to Helena—you see that I have found out a way to keep my promise.”
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Belinda; “for I am not going back to Lady Delacour’s.”
“Then I am very glad of it!” said the boy, dropping the weed, and clapping his hands joyfully; “for then I hope you will always stay here, don’t you, mamma?—don’t you, Mr. Vincent? Oh, you do, I am sure, for I heard you say so to papa the other day! But what makes you grow so red?”
His mother took him by the hand, as he was going to repeat the question, and leading him out of the room, desired him to show her the place where he found the food for the gold fishes.
Belinda, to Mr. Vincent’s great relief, seemed not to take any notice of the child’s question, nor to have any sympathy in his curiosity; she was intently copying Westall’s sketch of Lady Anne Percival and her family, and she had been roused, by the first mention of Helena Delacour’s name, to many painful and some pleasing recollections. “What a charming woman, and what a charming family!” said Mr. Vincent, as he looked at the drawing; “and how much more interesting is this picture of domestic happiness than all the pictures of shepherds and shepherdesses, and gods and goddesses, that ever were drawn!”