"Whist, mother!" said her son, pulling at her gown under the table. "Let people settle their own hash."
"They would have mixed my son up in their hash, and done for him, if they could. I'll show them I see through them and their pretensions, now when they're fand out, and know what a little-worth crew they are."
Joseph Naylor overheard, and could not restrain a smile, which excited the indignation of his sister-in-law almost beyond control.
"I remember your polite expressions, ma'am," she said; "but there are distinctions which make a difference. The gentleman you then chose to speak of disrespectfully, coupling his name with Miss Naylor's in a most unwarrantable manner, is fifth son of a deputy-lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum in Memicombshire, England. You have not been used to meet gentlemen of his station, and had better not refer to them. Ignorance becomes ridiculous when it forces itself into notice."
"The fifth son of a tirlie-wirlie, is he, ma'am? I think little of that. I'd have ye know that my son has a tirlie-wirlie of his own, if it's a cairidge ye mean. The fifth son of people with a cairidge isn't much. He'd have to ride outside on the dickie beside the driver, I'm thinking."
Mrs Naylor was dumb. It is useless to retort on people who do not, or who will not, understand.
At that moment a telegram was brought to Joseph. He tore it open, read it, and handed it to his sister-in-law.
"This is from Margaret," he whispered. "Control yourself, and do not give the people room to snigger at your expense."
The telegram was dated Gorham, New Hampshire. It ran: "Married at eleven this morning. Margaret Blount."
Mrs Naylor read, and but for the sudden flushing of her features, controlled herself from any outward betrayal of displeasure. It is the one unmixed good which comes of living in public, that people are compelled to suppress their manifestations of feeling; and, driven by stress of circumstances to seem calm, the more speedily become so really. Reason, unimpeded by emotion, which is nourished on its own manifestations, comes sooner to the rescue, and shows how few miscarriages are worth the distress we are apt to give ourselves over them. In pretending before observers to make light of a disappointment, we involuntarily give heed to our own words, and come to think less of it than otherwise we should have done. Mrs Naylor's mind, instead of dwelling on her provocation, was forced to conceal the wound from the impertinently curious, and thereby dividing itself upon two views of the subject--the grievance and its concealment--was less disturbed by either.