"Is it our engagement you mean?" Margaret answered, with heightened colour. She knew that she was unwise to speak, but her temper was rising. It always would rise, she knew not how, when her mother spoke of "young Blount."
"Your what?" her mother cried, indignantly. "I will not hear of such a thing. I have forbidden you to be engaged to him. You shan't be engaged to him; and now that you force me to it, I forbid you to speak to him. An abominable young man!--worming himself deceitfully into families where he is not wanted. Was there ever anything so ungentlemanlike as his sneaking down here after us, although he had been as good as forbidden the house at home? He had not the candour to come to me and say, 'Mrs Naylor, I am here;' but slyly waylays you in a crowded ball-room, to hold surreptitious interviews. I never heard of anything so atrocious in my life. I could not have believed it. But it rewards me for my imprudence in taking up a stranger, merely to oblige your uncle Joseph, and being kind to him--warming a viper in my bosom, that he might turn and sting me!"
This was fine, and Mrs Naylor stopped for breath.
"You have no right to say such things, mother," Margaret answered, hotly. "Walter never was ungentlemanlike. He could not be, if he were to try. And he is no sneak. He is as brave and honest as the day; and I have heard you say as much yourself, formerly, when he used to visit us. You often said he was the nicest young man of your acquaintance."
"And this is the reward of my ill-judged hospitality--having him come to me with your uncle, when you were both children! I see my imprudence now; but at least my daughter might spare me," and Mrs Naylor put her handkerchief to her eyes. "That a mother's solicitude should be taunted thus, by the very child she is trying to shield from the effects of her injudicious good-nature! Oh, Margaret, you are cruel!"
Margaret felt shocked with herself. To think that she should bring tears to her mother's eyes! How hard and obdurate she must surely be! She had never felt so wicked in all her life before. Yet how to mend it? She would gladly do anything to pacify and soothe her wounded mother--anything but give up Walter; and that was the only thing which would be of any avail. She forbore to say more in his defence, however--in fact she could not have trusted her voice to keep steady or say anything just then; and as she saw the handkerchief still at her mother's eyes, her own began to overflow. She was contrite, without attempting to particularise on what account, and very unhappy.
Mrs Naylor saw that her demonstration had told, and made haste to improve the advantage. She put her handkerchief back in her pocket and cleared her voice.
"It is for your own sake I am so solicitous, Margaret. It is you he is trying to marry. You can marry but once, remember. Think how momentous is this step you are so blindly eager to take. Your whole future life depends on it."
"We are fond of one another, mother, and he is good and true. What more can a girl want?"
"Much, my dear. You talk like an inexperienced simpleton. How differently you will look on things in ten years' time! People cannot live--perhaps for fifty years--like turtles in a nest, in one continued round of billing and cooing. They must eat and dress themselves every day; and to do that nicely takes a deal of money, more than your friend is likely ever to earn."