This letter had given them such delight, because it showed how deeply Amaryllis had annoyed the old gentleman. Had he been whipped he could hardly have yelled more; he screamed through his scratchy quill. Suppose they did lose his money, he had had one good upset, that was something.
They were eager to hear all about it. Amaryllis was at first very shy to tell, knowing that her father was a thick Tory and an upholder of the Pamments, and fearing his displeasure. But for various reasons both father and mother grew warmer in delight at every fresh incident of her story.
Mrs. Flamma Iden—revolutionary Flamma—detested the Pamments enthusiastically, on principle first, and next, because the grandfather paid them such court.
Iden was indeed an extra thick Tory, quite opaque, and had voted in the Pamment interest these thirty years, yet he had his secret reasons for disliking them personally.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Iden agreed in their scorn of the grandfather's pottering about the grounds and in and out the conservatories, as if that was the highest honour on earth. Yet Mrs. Iden used often to accuse her husband of a desire to do the very same thing: "You're just as stupid," she would say; "you'd think it wonderful to have a private key—you're every bit as silly really, only you haven't got the chance."
However, from a variety of causes they agreed in looking on Amaryllis' disgrace as a high triumph and glory.
So she was petted all the morning by both parties—a rare thing—and in the afternoon Iden gave her the sovereign she had brought home, to buy her some new boots, and to spend the rest as she chose on herself.
Away went Amaryllis to the town, happy and yet not without regret that she had increased the disagreement between her father and grandfather. She met the vans and gipsies slowly leaving the site of the fair, the children running along with bare brown feet. She went under the archæologically interesting gateway, and knocked at the door of Tiras Wise, shoemaker, "established 200 years."
Tiras Wise of the present generation was thin and nervous, weary of the centuries, worn out, and miserable-looking. Amaryllis, strong in the possession of a golden sovereign, attacked him sharply for his perfidious promises; her boots promised at Christmas were not mended yet.
Tiras, twiddling a lady's boot in one hand, and his foot measure in the other, very humbly and deprecatingly excused himself; there had been so much trouble with the workmen, some were so tipsy, and some would not work; they were always demanding higher wages, and just as he had a job in hand going off and leaving it half finished—shoemaker's tricks these. Sometimes, indeed, he could not get a workman, and then there was the competition of the ready-made boot from Northampton; really, it was most trying—it really was.