Whilst Mrs. Beaumont was demonstrating to Miss Hunter that the most convenient and secure time for a tête-à-tête is at a large dinner, she happened to look out of the window, near which they were standing, and she saw her son and daughter with Mr. Palmer walking in the park; they sat down under a tree within view of the house.
“Come away from the window, my dear,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “they will observe us, and perhaps think we are plotting something. I wonder what they are talking of! Look how earnestly Amelia is stretching out her neck, and Mr. Palmer striking his cane upon the ground. Come back a little, my dear, come back; you can see as well here.”
“But I see a gentleman on horseback, galloping. Oh, ma’am, look! he has stopped! he has jumped off his horse! Captain Walsingham it must be!”
“Captain Walsingham it really is!” said Mrs. Beaumont, pressing forward to look out of the window, yet standing so, that she could not be seen from without.
“Dear,” said Miss Hunter, “but how delighted Mr. Beaumont seems; and how Mr. Palmer shakes Captain Walsingham’s hand, as if he had known him these hundred years! What can make them so glad to see him? Do look at them, ma’am.”
“I see it all!” said Mrs. Beaumont, with an involuntary sigh.
“But, dear Mrs. Beaumont,” pursued Miss Hunter, “if he has actually come at last to propose for Amelia, don’t you think he is doing it in a shabby sort of way? When he has been in London too—and if he has taken such a treasure too, could not he have come down here a little more in style, with some sort of an equipage of his own at least? But now only look at him; would you, if you met him on the road, know him from any common man?”
Another sigh, deep and sincere, was all the answer Mrs. Beaumont made.
“I am sure,” continued Miss Hunter, as Mrs. Beaumont drew her away from the window, “I am sure, I think Amelia has not gained much by the change of admirers; for what’s a captain of a ship?”
“He ranks with a colonel in the army, to be sure,” said Mrs. Beaumont; “but Amelia might have looked much higher. If she does not know her own interest and dignity, that is not my fault.”