“So it seems Mr Auberly has disinherited and dismissed his son, my dear,” said Miss Deemas, smoothing her dress with both hands, as though she were about to lay Mr Auberly in her lap, and analyse him.
“I’m sorry to say that it is too true, Julia,” answered Miss Tippet, with a sigh.
“Ha! it’s so like one of these creatures,” said Miss Deemas, pursing her thin lips; “so domineering, so towering, in their pride of mere physical power.”
Mr Tippet glanced at the Eagle in surprise, not being able to understand to what sort of “creatures” she made reference.
“Poor Frederick,” sighed Miss Tippet, “I don’t know what he’ll do (ring the bell, Emma, darling); he’s such a bold, high-spirited young man, and it’s all owing to his determination to take to—to what’s-’is-name as a profession (bring the tea, Matty). It’s very sad.”
“That must be a new sort of profession,” observed Miss Deemas pointedly.
“Oh! I mean painting, you know. It’s impossible to arrange one’s things in such very correct language, you know, dear Julia; you are really too—oh! did you hear of Joe Corney, and what’s-his— fireman’s visit to Mrs Denman? To be sure you did; I forgot it was in your house. It was such a funny account; you heard of it, brother (ring the bell again, dear), didn’t you?”
Mr Tippet, whose wonted vivacity was quite subdued by the freezing influence of the Eagle, said that he had not heard of it; whereupon Miss Tippet said that she had heard of it, and so had Willie Willders, who had heard of it from his brother Frank, who had heard of it from Joe Corney himself; and then she attempted to relate the matter, but failed, and finally asked Willie to tell the story, which Willie did with much gusto; looking at Miss Deemas all the time, and speaking in a very positive tone, as if he thought she was doubting every word he said, and was resolved to hurl it in her teeth, whether she chose to believe it or not.
“Capital!” exclaimed Mr Tippet, laughing heartily, when Willie had concluded; “what an energetic old lady she must be! Really, I must get introduced to her, and show her the self-acting fire-extinguisher I have just invented. You remember it, Willie?” Willie nodded. “I’ve laid it aside for some time; but it is very nearly complete now. A little more work on it will finish it. My only difficulty in regard to it is, madam,” he addressed himself to Miss Deemas here, “that it is apt to burst, and I am uncertain whether or not to add a safety-valve to prevent such a catastrophe, or to make the metal so very strong, that nothing short of gunpowder would burst it; but then, you see, that would make the whole affair too heavy. However, these are only minor difficulties of detail, which a little thought will overcome.”
Miss Deemas received all this with a sinister smile, and replied with the single word, “Oh!” after which she turned immediately to Miss Tippet, and remarked that the weather had been unusually warm of late for the season of the year, which remark so exasperated Willie Willders that he turned with a face of crimson to Emma, and asked her if she didn’t feel a draught of cold air coming over her from somewhere, and whether she would not sit nearer the fire, and farther away from the window!