“Yes, indeed. Thank you so much. I feel sure that your advice is wise, and I shall certainly follow it. There’s that soldier nephew of Mrs Mott’s, who is constantly running down on short visits. I object intensely to that dashing style! He is just the type of man to run after a girl for her money. I shall take special care that they do not meet. One thing I am determined upon,” said Miss Briskett, sternly, “and that is that there shall be no love-making, nor philandering of any kind under my roof. I could not be troubled with such nonsense, nor with the responsibility of it. I am accustomed to a quiet, regular life, and if Cornelia comes to me, she must conform to the regulations of the household. At my age I cannot be expected to alter my ways for the sake of a girl.”
“Certainly not. She is a mere girl, I suppose! How old may she be?”
Miss Briskett considered.
“She was born in the winter! I distinctly remember coming in and seeing the cable, and taking off my fur gloves to open it.—It was the year I bought the dining-room carpet. It was just down, I remember, and as we drank the baby’s health, the cork flew out of the bottle, and some of the champagne was spilt, and there was a great fuss wiping it up— Twenty-two years ago! Who would have thought it could be so long?”
“Ah, it always pays to get a good thing while you are about it. It costs a great deal at the start, but you have such satisfaction afterwards. It’s not a bit faded!” Mrs Ramsden affirmed, alluding, be it understood, to the Turkey carpet, and not to Miss Cornelia Briskett. “Twenty-two. Just a year younger than my Elma! Elma will be glad to have a companion.”
“It is kind of you to say so. Nothing would please me better than to see Cornelia become intimate with your daughter. Poor child, she has not had the advantages of an English upbringing; but we must hope that this visit will be productive of much good. She could not have a better example than Elma. She is a type of a sweet, guileless, English girl.”
“Ye–es!” asserted the sweet girl’s mother, doubtfully; “but you know, dear Miss Briskett, that at times even Elma...” She shook her head, sighed, and continued with a struggling smile: “We must remember—must we not—that we have been young ourselves, and try not to be too hard on little eccentricities!”
Mrs Ramsden spoke with feeling, for memory, though slumbering, was not dead. She had not always been a well-conducted widow lady, who expressed herself with decorum, and wore black cashmere and bugles. Thirty odd years ago she had been a plump little girl, with a lively capacity for mischief.
On one occasion she had danced two-thirds of the programme at a ball with an officer even more dashing than the objectionable nephew of Mrs Mott, and in a corner of the conservatory had given him a flower from her bouquet. He had kissed the flower before pressing it in his pocket-book, and had looked as if he would have liked to kiss something else into the bargain. ... After twenty-five years of life at Norton, it was astonishing how vividly the prim little widow recalled the guilty thrill of that moment! On yet another occasion she had carried on a clandestine correspondence with the brother of a friend, and had awakened to tardy pangs of conscience only when a more attractive suitor came upon the scene!
Mrs Ramsden blushed at the remembrance, and felt a kindly softening of the heart towards the absent Cornelia but Miss Briskett remained coldly unmoved. She had been an old maid in her cradle, and had gone on steadily growing old maidier ever since. Never had she so forgotten herself as to dally with the affections of any young man, which was perhaps the less to her credit, as no young man had exhibited any inclination to tempt her from the paths of single blessedness.