"They each of them bring their own maid," said the hospitable lady as she conned over their epistle; "but I do not mind the expense nor the trouble; the Beeches are such pleasant companions. I dare say they won't die worth less than twenty thousand pounds apiece. Now I hope you intend to make yourself agreeable, Sam. Let us have none of your jests and your dry sayings. They are—they are staid, serious persons, and don't like such things, but are partial to sensible conversation. If I recollect right, the last time Miss Julia was here, she told me she had three thousand pounds in the Long Annuities. Both she and her sister treat me with the greatest confidence. I only wish they would not go to Barking so soon. If we were to make things very agreeable to them, who knows, Sam, but they might break their engagement with that mercenary Mr. Smith?"
Thus ran on my aunt, while I silently acquiesced in all she said.
"Why, Sam, you do not seem pleased at the prospect of company!"
"Indeed, aunt," replied I, "I was only thinking you would like my room."
"Will you have done with your jests?" said Aunt Jem, suspecting a joke in my literal offer, I knowing that ladies' maids are often more fastidious as to their bedchambers than their mistresses.
"It is very provoking," exclaimed I in a pet, "that you always think I am making some foolish pun. I only wish to do my part towards rendering your guests and their attendants comfortable. You know what a fuss they make about their servants; turning the house into a hospital for the slightest cold, and talking of 'dear Mr. Smith's cough medicine!' I was only thinking what I could do, to keep the Beeches from Barking."
I suppose, in my haste to exculpate myself from the charge of punning, I could not have taken due care to elongate the proper name of the fair spinsters, and, doubtless, it must have sounded a most improper one in the ears of my aunt; for her little eyes seemed actually to emit sparks, as a black cat's back is said to do when ruffled in the dark.
"They are gentlewomen, Mr. Winkings!" cried Aunt Jem, almost choked with indignation, "and their attendants are respectable young persons, while you are a disgrace to your family. For shame! for shame!" emphatically continued the angry lady, interrupting the excuses I attempted to make; "I will not listen to you. I beg you will leave my house immediately. Your room is indeed most desirable, as you just now so wittily remarked. I would not subject my friends to the insolent licence of your tongue for worlds!"
Away marched Aunt Jem with the strut of an incensed turkey-cock, and an hour afterwards, I was on my way back to London; nor have I ever been able to convince my mistaken relative of my innocence, and still do I remain under the ban of her displeasure.
It would be wearying the reader to state all I have lost, and all I have suffered from the imputation of being a droll; and so I will content myself with one more instance of my unhappy fatality.