‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I thought you were angry; and here you come like—like Hebe, you know—with nectar in your hand.’
‘I am rather an elderly Hebe,’ she said, ‘but it’s a pretty comparison all the same. If I were young and blooming instead of being old and dried up, I should have made you a curtsey for your compliment; but there’s this compensation, Mr. Jim, that a Hebe of seventeen, which is, I believe, the right age, would probably not know how to make up a drink like this. Taste it, and tell me if it isn’t the very nicest I have made for you yet?’
‘It is nectar,’ said Jim fervently; ‘but,’ he added, ‘do you know, I wish you wouldn’t make me such delicious things to drink. Why should I give you all this trouble, and’—he paused, and added, embarrassed—‘expense too?’
Mrs. Brown laughed and clapped her hands. ‘Expense, too!’ she cried; ‘how good! Oh, you don’t know how I get the materials, and how little they cost me; people I used to employ in—in what you call my better days, are so faithful to me. As you say, Mr. Jim, the world isn’t at all such a hard place as one thinks; and even the ladies of the parish—but you do amuse me so with your stories of the parish—it’s such an odd little world, isn’t it? Tell me, what are they saying about Leo Swinford? Has any one made up her mind to marry him? That’s what I expect to hear every day.’
‘I don’t know anybody that wants to marry him,’ said Jim. ‘I suppose he must take the first step in anything of that kind.’
‘Do you think so, really?’ said Mrs. Brown. ‘Now, do you know, I am not at all so sure of that; the ladies will think of it first, I’ll promise you. He is a nice young man, with a good estate; and he hadn’t been a week in the parish, I’ll answer for it, before two or three ladies had settled who was to have him—and as for the young ones themselves—— Oh, my dear Mr. Jim, you are too good-hearted; you don’t think, then, of the plans and schemes that may be laid for you?’
‘Me!’ said Jim, with a blush; and then he shook his head. ‘Nobody approves of me enough to make any plans about me.’
‘Don’t you be too sure of that,’ she said airily; ‘but Leo Swinford is a new man, and he’s got a quantity of money. Now, answer me my question, for I’ve known him all his life, and I take an interest in him: who is going to marry him? Does your——’ She paused, and the mischief in her eyes yielded to alarm for a moment. However much a youth may be in your bonds, and capable of guidance, yet it is possible that he may rebel if you question him about his mother; so she changed what she was about to say. ‘Does your—aunt,’ she proceeded, ‘Lady William, don’t you know, as everybody calls her—think of him for her little fat girl? Oh, I beg your pardon; I think she is a very nice little girl, but she is fat; when she grows older she will fine down.’
Jim’s delicacy was not offended by this statement. He laughed. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Mab is fat; but she is a nice little girl for all that.’
‘A dear little girl,’ said Mrs. Brown; ‘she comes and gives me advice about the children. You would think she was seventy instead of seventeen. Well, is she to be the bride. Have the parish ladies given their votes for her?’