"By no means," replied the husband. "It wouldn't be right, Mr Peeper, for my wife to be absent from the supper-table?"
"Certainly not. It is to see her the neighbours are coming."
Is this Mr Peeper to have the control of all my actions? thought Jane. Who can he be?
She took another glance at the object of her thoughts, but caught his eye fixed on her with the same penetrating brightness as before; and she cast her looks on the ground; and, whether from anger or fear, she felt her cheeks glowing with blushes.
"You will not be long gone, if you please," he said to Jane as she retired to change her dress.
"You don't seem pleased to see us, Mr Peeper," said Reginald, when Jane had gone to her room under the guidance of a very tall old woman, who walked before her, holding out a tremendously long candle, as if it were a sword, and she was at the head of a military procession.
"No, sir," replied Mr Peeper; "I am not pleased with the person you have brought here. You have gone too far from home for a wife. None of the Belfronts have ever married out of Yorkshire, and it may give rise to troubles."
"I am very sorry my wife's relations would not allow me to send for you to perform the ceremony."
"It is a bad omen," said the old man; "my predecessors have married your predecessors without a break since the conquest. It bodes no good."
"I trust no harm will happen, and that you will soon forget the disappointment."