"There now, his dear little tail is better! Little Pixie loves me so. Little Pixie never tells somebody that she is an unreasonable creature. Little Pixie is too polite for that."
"Well, I think I had better be off for the day. I have heard of people getting out of bed the wrong side; and you can't make it right all the day, when that has happened. Miss Waldron, I must not go away without saying that my sister sends you her very best love. I was to be sure to remember that."
"Oh, thank you, Dr. Fox! Your sister is always so very sweet and considerate. And I hope she has also been allowed to send it where it is due, a thousand times as much as here."
"Where can that be? At the rectory, I suppose. Yes, she has not forgotten Mr. Penniloe. She is not at all fickle in her likings."
"Now that is a very fine quality indeed, as well as a very rare one. And another she has, and will not be driven from it; and I own that I quite agree with her. She does not look down upon other people, and think that they belong to another world, because they are not so well off in this one as she is. A gentleman is a gentleman, in her judgment, and is not to be cast by, after many kind acts, merely because he is not made of money."
"Ah, now I see what all this comes to!" exclaimed Fox, smiling pleasantly. "Well, I am quite open to a little reasoning there, because the whole thing is so ridiculous. Now put it to yourself; how would you like to be a sort of son-in-law to good Mother Gilham's green coal-scuttle? A coal-scuttle should make one grateful, you will say. Hear, hear! not at all a bad pun that; though quite involuntary."
"The bonnet may be behind the age, or in front of it, I know not which;" said Nicie, very resolute to show no smile; "but a better and sweeter old face never looked——"
"A better horse never looked out of a bridle. It is bridle, and blinkers, and saddle, all in one."
"It is quite useless trying to make me laugh." Her voice however belied her; and Pixie watching her face began to wag the wounded tail again. "Your sister, who knows what bonnets are, to which you can have no pretension, is well acquainted with the sterling value——"
"Oh come, I am sure it would not fetch much now, though it may have cost two guineas, or more, in the days before 'my son Frank' was born."