“Good gracious!” exclaimed Emma, opening her eyes wide, and feeling more inclined to laugh than to cry, for her mood was ever sunny, “what am I doing to him?”
How Mrs. Jonas spoke out all that was in her mind, she could never afterwards recall. Emma Topcroft, gazing and listening, could not remain ignorant of her supposed fault now; and she burst into a fit of laughter. Mrs. Jonas longed to box her ears. She regarded it as the very incarnation of impudence.
“Marry me! Me! Mr. Lake! My goodness!—what can have put such a thing into all your heads?” cried Emma, in a rapture of mirth. “Why, he is forty-five if he’s a day! He wouldn’t think of me: he couldn’t. He came here when I was a little child: he does not look upon me as much else yet. Well, I never!”
And the words came out in so impromptu a fashion, the surprise was so honestly genuine, that Mrs. Jonas saw there must be a mistake somewhere. She took the rejected chair then, her fears relieved, her tones softened, and began casting matters about in her mind; still not seeing any way out of them.
“Is it your mother he is going to marry?” cried she, the lame solution presenting itself to her thoughts, and speaking it out on the spur of the moment. It was Emma’s turn to be vexed now.
“Oh, Mrs. Jonas, how can you!” she cried with spirit. “My poor old mother!” And somehow Mrs. Jonas felt humiliated, and bit her lips in vexation at having spoken at all.
“He evidently is going to be married,” she urged presently, returning to the charge.
“He is not going to marry me,” said Emma, threading her needle. “Or to marry my mother either. I can say no more than that.”
“You have been going to London with him to choose some furniture: bedsteads, and carpets and things,” contended Mrs. Jonas.
“Mamma has gone with him to choose it all: Mr. Lake would have been finely taken in, with his inexperience. As to me, I wanted to go too, and they let me. They said it would be as well that young eyes should see as well as theirs, especially the colours of the carpets and the patterns of the crockery-ware.”