Lottie obeys, duly impressed by her sister's determined manner, and, when the happy suitor returns, laden with footstools and cushions, prepared for a long morning's tête-à-tête with his love, he finds the rickety bower in possession of the whole family, who linger by him all the morning, favoring him with their views, and opinions of things in general, favoring him also with diffuse reminiscences of personal biography, and systematically intercepting the faintest exchange of word, or even look, with his sweet-voiced betrothed.
He bears it with tolerable patience for an hour or so, and then relapses into moody taciturnity, thus leaving the burden of entertainment on the able shoulders of "Robert the Magnificent," who fancies that the brilliancy and aristocratic flavor of his conversation are creating a most favorable, in fact, overpowering effect on his plebeian guest, little deeming, honest lad, that the said guest at the time is inwardly voting his future brother-in-law one of the most insufferably flippant young prigs and bores it has ever been his misfortune to meet. At last, unable to stand it any more he takes an irritated turn round the garden, where he is immediately joined by the two younger Lefroys.
"Are you fond of gooseberries, Mr. Armstrong?" begins Lottie, whose voice has not had fair play in the arbor. "Would you like me to pick you some?—though they are wretched in this garden—little sour hard balls scarcely worth picking."
"They're splendid up at Nutsgrove," he answers eagerly, struck with a happy thought—"splendid, large, soft, sweet, and yellow. Suppose you all trot up there now—Robert, Pauline, Hal, and you, and have a good morning's feed—eh?"
"Oh, it would be delicious! You'd come with us, too, wouldn't you?"
"Well—ah, no; I would remain with your sister and aunt—keep them company until you come back."
"Would you? Oh, dear, then we can't go."
"Why not, pray?"
"Because Addie made us all promise faithfully, while you were away with the peas, that we would remain and help her to entertain you whenever you came, and never to leave her. She has no conversational powers, she says; but Rob and Polly have a lot—haven't they? And they have promised, so have Hal and I too. It's an awful pity, isn't, it? I—I wish you'd come with us; I know Addie wouldn't mind a bit. She's very hot-tempered, you know—worse than any of us—but awfully good-natured, and not a scrap huffy, like Bob and Poll."