“You seem to enjoy the joke!” said Harry, stiffly, feeling offended.
“Enjoy the joke! don’t you? But it was rather a shock than a joke. What a pretty woman! what a pretty voice! It reminds me of blue-bells and birch trees, and all kinds of pleasant things in Burns and Scott. But Mrs. Smith! And how that lamp smelt! My dear Harry, I wish you would be a little more cautious, or else give me the reins. I don’t want to be upset in the mud. Mrs. Smith!”
“You seem to be mightily amused,” said Harry, more gruff than ever.
“Yes, considerably; but I see you don’t share my amusement,” said Lady Mary, still more amused at this sudden outburst of temper, or propriety, or whatever it might be.
“I always thought you were very sympathetic, Aunt Mary,” said the young man, with a tone of dignified reproof. “It is one of the words you ladies use to express nothing particular, I suppose? The girls are always dinning it into my ears.”
“And you think I don’t come up to my character, Harry?”
“I don’t understand your joke, I confess,” said Harry, with the loftiest superiority, drawing up at the great hall door.
CHAPTER IV.
The Education of Women.
Mr. Tottenham came back from town that evening alone. He explained that Earnshaw had stayed behind on business. “Business partly mine, and partly his own; he’s the best fellow that ever lived,” was all the explanation he gave to his wife; and Lady Mary was unquestionably curious. They talked a great deal about Edgar at dinner that evening, and Phil made himself especially objectionable by his questions and his indignation.
“He hasn’t been here so long that he should go away,” said Phil. “Don’t he like us, papa? I am sure there is something wrong by your face.”