“It is a leap in the dark, if ever there was one; and at my age the taste for such agilities is pretty well extinct.”
There was such a sombre misgiving in her tone, that his own changed at once to that of the kindest, patientest reasoning.
“Don’t you think you are making rather a mountain out of a molehill? The girl comes as an ordinary visitor. Supposing the worst, that you—we” (correcting himself) “do not care much about her, the visit ends, she goes, and whose bones are broken?”
Mrs. Tancred shook her head. “Having once undertaken her, I shall put it through, unless, of course”—with her little dry laugh—“you set your foot down, like Tom.”
“The comparison jarred upon him. She had meant it to do so, as a relief to her own ill humour, but not being one of those fortunate people who can indulge in pet vices, like indigestible dainties, without after ill effects, she expiated her ebullition by an instantaneous remorse, which, being unexpressed, did neither of them any good.
“Felicity gave one absolutely no data to go upon”—drawing from her pocket the brief note inserted in Miss Ransome’s letter by the warranter of that young lady’s general soundness. “‘Gay as a lark.’” She paused after the quotation, and Edward had a nervous dread that she was going to add the oft-repeated gloss, “When her mother died three months ago,” but for once she abstained. “‘Gay as a lark, and has been of invaluable assistance to me in my “Happy evenings.”’ Not a word else! not a hint as to her character, her tastes, her faults!”
“Perhaps she will be of invaluable assistance to us in our happy evenings.”
It was said in a perfectly innocent voice, as offering a plausible suggestion; but his wife knew that it was his revenge for Tom’s foot.
“B-r-o-o-m! Yes, there can be no mistake about it!” said Mrs. Tancred, recurring to and carefully verifying poor Miss Ransome’s stumble upon the path of orthography, and forcing her husband to verify it too.
He laughed with contemptible male leniency. “Do you think she will arrive riding upon it, like a witch?” His slight mirth was not infectious.