“Ah, poor thing! yes,” said Mrs. Beaumont, in a most pathetic tone: “ah, poor thing!”
“Why, ma’am, what has happened to her? What’s the matter?”
“Matter? Oh, nothing!—Did I say that any thing was the matter? Don’t speak so loud,” whispered she: “your groom heard every word we said; stay till he is out of hearing, and then we can talk.”
“I don’t care if all the world hears what I say,” cried Mr. Beaumont hastily: but, as if suppressing his rising indignation, he, with a milder look and tone, added, “I cannot conceive, my dear mother, why you are always so afraid of being overheard.”
“Servants, my dear, make such mischief, you know, by misunderstanding and misrepresenting every thing they hear; and they repeat things so oddly, and raise such strange reports!”
“True—very true indeed, ma’am,” said Mr. Beaumont. “You are quite right, and I beg pardon for being so hasty—I wish you could teach me a little of your patience and prudence.”
“Prudence! ah! my dear Edward, ‘tis only time and sad experience of the world can teach that to people of our open tempers. I was at your age ten times more imprudent and unsuspicious than you are.”
“Were you, ma’am?—But I don’t think I am unsuspicious. I was when I was a boy—I wish we could continue children always in some things. I hate suspicion in any body—but more than in any one else, I hate it in myself. And yet—”
Mr. Beaumont hesitated, and his mother instantly went on with a fluent panegyric upon the hereditary unsuspiciousness of his temper.
“But, madam, were you not saying something to me about Miss Hunter?”