CHAPTER II
BROTHER AND SISTER
LORD CHARLES SPENCER paused in the centre of the triangle.
“A very pretty performance,” he said with a sneer, “a very proper performance—to sing Jacobite ballads here!”
“I trow they are not the first that have been sung here, brother,” retorted Lady Betty pertly.
“You have a saucy tongue, Elizabeth,” replied her brother rudely, turning white rather than red, for in this young man’s disposition anger went white, not red. “’Twould go hard with you if my father heard that.”
“’Twould go hard with you if my father heard that!” mocked Lady Betty incorrigible. “Come, come, Charles, talk of something agreeable. What is the volume under your arm? Noah’s observations on droughts? or Adam’s reflections on mothers-in-law? or Cain’s on brotherly love? Faith, I always expect something profound from the most erudite ornament of the Whig party.”
“I wish I might look as certainly for discretion in Elizabeth Spencer,” he replied with acrimony.