CHAPTER VI.
A FAMILY JAR.
I DID not feel at all at ease when Mrs. Oliphant entered the room. I was entirely willing to be conquered and trodden under the little feet of the fair Lilian, but I was not so ready to be trampled upon by the unromantic feet of “dear ma.” I was conscious that my pretty wife was getting the weather-gage of me—that she had already got it, in fact. I was not disposed to complain of this, but I intended, if possible, to out-manœuvre Mrs. Oliphant. I regarded Lilian as “my family,” and I wished to have her “set off” from my mother-in-law.
In spite of all the strong talk which my lovely wife had used in regard to the English basement house, I confidently expected that she would take her place in the new home I had provided for her. If she was dissatisfied with it, she would soon love it for my sake, if not for its own. But I was sure she did not rebel on her own account; it was the influence of her mother which had controlled her. I accepted the theory that the queen’s majesty could do no wrong. If anything was not right, it was the fault of the ministers.
After I had permitted her to say all she had to say, and to exhaust her vocabulary of invective, she would quietly submit to the new house, move in, be as happy as a queen in a short time, and wonder how she had ever thought the little snuggery was not a palace. I had made a fearful expenditure in preparing the house for her; I had thrust my head into the jaws of the monster Debt, and I must make the best of the situation.
“Ma,” said Lilian, as her mother entered the room, “what do you suppose Paley has done?”
The poor child looked at the faded carpet as she spoke, hardly daring to raise her eyes to the maternal visage. I hoped she contrasted the hueless fabric on the floor with those bright colors which gleamed from her own carpet in the Needham street house.
“Why, what has he done?” asked Mrs. Oliphant, with a theatrical start, which was modified by a tiger smile bestowed upon me.
“He has hired a house?” replied Lilian, with a gasping sigh, which was simply intended as convincing evidence that she was not implicated in the nefarious transaction.