Walter got up from his chair, as a man is apt to do when the argument becomes intolerable. “Mother,” he said, “you know very well that not one of those intentions was in my mind. I don’t want to become bosom friends with people who are injuring us for their own advantage; but as to wishing my father a single hour, a single moment less—or even Sir Walter—” the youth cried, with a break in his voice.
“Oh,” cried Anne, with impatience, “as if mother did not know that! Mother, the others are dreadfully unreasonable. I’ll go.”
Mrs. Penton paused a little and cleared her throat. “I am afraid you are just the one that is not asked. I dare say your cousin thinks that you are not out, Anne: and no more you are, my dear.”
“She is as much out as I am, and we have always said when we went anywhere we should go together. Mother, if you wish it, of course I’ll go.”
“And equally of course I will go too,” said Walter, somewhat indignant to be left out, “when my mother puts it like that.”
“Well, children dear,” said Mrs. Penton, sinking at once into an easier tone, “how could I put it otherwise? As long as you will go pleasantly and friendly, and make no reflections. It is such a natural thing, so right, so exactly what should be, both for them to ask and for you to accept. Well now,” she added, briskly, coming down from her high chair, drawing forward her own natural seat, putting out an accustomed hand for her work-basket—“now that this is all settled there are the preparations to think of. Walter, you must go up at once to your father’s tailor—to his grand tailor, you know, whom he only goes to now and then—and order yourself some new suits.”
“Some new suits!” they all cried, with widely opened eyes.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Penton, who never had been known to enter into any such schemes of extravagance before. “Indeed, we may all go to town together, for I must look after Ally’s things, and there is no time to be lost.”
“My—things, mother!” The plural in both cases was what petrified the young people, who had been used to get only what could not be done without.
“You must have a nice tweed suit for the morning, Wat, and some dress clothes, and your father will tell you whether you should get any other things for Oxford, for of course I am not an authority as to what young men require. And it is so long since I have seen anything that is fashionable,” said Mrs. Penton, “that I don’t really know even what girls wear. Girls are really more troublesome than boys, so far as dress is concerned. You can trust a good tailor, but as to what is exactly suitable to a girl’s complexion and style, and the details, you know—the shoes, and the gloves, and the fans, and all that—”