“Yes; and am so rejoiced at it! Do, my dear Lightbody, go to Amelia and my son from me, and tell them that charming news. And after that, pray have the compassion to inquire if the post is not come in yet, and run over the papers, to see if you can find any thing about Walsingham’s prize.”
Mr. Lightbody obeyed, but not with his usual alacrity. Mrs. Beaumont mused for a moment, and then said, “I do believe he was listening. What could he be doing there?”
“Doing!—Oh, nothing,” said Miss Hunter: “he’s never doing any thing, you know; and as to listening, he was so far off he could not hear a word we said: besides, he is such a simple creature, and loves you so!”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “he either did not play me fair, or else he did a job I employed him in this morning so awkwardly, that I never wish to employ him again. He is but a low kind of person, after all; I’ll get rid of him: that sort of people always grow tiresome and troublesome after a time, and one must shake them off. But I have not leisure to think of him now—Well, my dear, to go on with what I was saying to you.”
Mrs. Beaumont went on talking of her friendship for Sir John Hunter, and of the difficulty of appeasing him; but observing that Miss Hunter listened only with forced attention, she paused to consider what this could mean. Habitually suspicious, like all insincere people, Mrs. Beaumont now began to imagine that there was some plot carrying on against her by Sir John Hunter and Lightbody, and that Miss Hunter was made use of against her. Having a most contemptible opinion of her Albina’s understanding, and knowing that her young friend had too little capacity to be able to deceive her, or to invent a plausible excuse impromptu, Mrs. Beaumont turned quick, and exclaimed, “My dear, what could Lightbody be saying to you when I came up?—for I remember he stopped short, and you both looked so guilty.”
“Guilty! did I?—Did he?—Dearest Mrs. Beaumont, don’t look at me so with your piercing eyes!—Oh! I vow and protest I can’t tell you; I won’t tell you.”
The young lady tittered, and twisted herself into various affected attitudes; then kissing Mrs. Beaumont, and then turning her back with childish playfulness, she cried, “No, I won’t tell you; never, never, never!”
“Come, come, my dear, don’t trifle; I have really business to do, and am in a hurry.”
“Well, don’t look at me—never look at me again—promise me that, and I’ll tell you. Poor Lightbody—Oh, you’re looking at me!—Poor Lightbody was talking to me of somebody, and he laid me a wager—but I can’t tell you that—Ah, don’t be angry with me, and I will tell, if you’ll turn your head quite away!—that I should be married to somebody before the end of this year. Oh, now, don’t look at me, dearest, dearest Mrs. Beaumont.”
“You dear little simpleton, and was that all?” said Mrs. Beaumont, vexed to have wasted her time upon such folly: “come, be serious now, my dear; if you knew the anxiety I am in at this moment—” But wisely judging that it would be in vain to hope for any portion of the love-sick damsel’s attention, until she had confirmed her hopes of being married to somebody before the end of the year, Mrs. Beaumont scrupled not to throw out assurances, in which she had herself no further faith. After what she had heard from her son this morning, she must have been convinced that there was no chance of marrying him to Miss Hunter; she knew indeed positively, that he would soon declare his real attachment, but she could, she thought, during the interval retain her power over Miss Hunter, and secure her services, by concealing the truth.