"Why, what's the matter with you, Bristles, can't you untie the string?"—"Here," continued Mr Pitskiver, "give me the cord," and so saying he untwisted it in a moment—down fell the side of the case, and to the astonished eyes of the assembled critics, and also of the party in the back drawing-room, revealed, not the masterpiece of the immortal Stickleback, but a female figure enveloped in a grey silk cloak, and covering its face with a white muslin handkerchief.
"Why, what the mischief is all this?" exclaimed the bewildered Mr Pitskiver; "this isn't the jeanie-ass you promised me a sight of. Who the deuce is this?"
The handkerchief was majestically removed, and the sharp eyes of Miss Hendy fixed in unspeakable disdain on the assembled party.
"'Tis I, base man! Are all your protestations of admiration come to this? Who shall doubt hereafter that it is the task of noble, gentle, self-denying woman to elevate society?"
A smothered but very audible laugh proceeding from the back drawing-room, interrupted the further eloquence of the regenerator of mankind; and, finding concealment useless, the two young ladies threw open the door, and advanced with their attendant lovers to the table. The female philosopher, with the assistance of Mr Bristles, descended from her lofty pedestal, and looked unutterable basilisks at the open-mouthed Mæcenas, who turned his eyes from the wooden box to Miss Hendy, and from Miss Hendy to the wooden box, without trusting himself with a word of either explanation or enquiry.
"We told you of our intentions, papa," said Miss Sophia, "if you brought that old lady to your house."
"I didn't bring her; I give you my honour 'twas that scoundrel Bristles," whispered the dismayed Pitskiver.
"You told me sir," exclaimed Bristles, "that you would be for ever indebted to me if I brought this lady to your mansion—that she was the perfection of grace and innocence. By a friendly arrangement with Mr Stickleback, the greatest sculptor of ancient or modern times, I managed to secure to this illustrious woman an admission to your house, which, I understood, she could not openly obtain through the opposition of your daughters. I considered that you knew of the arrangement, sir; and I know that, with a soft and feminine trustfulness, this most gentle and intellectual ornament of her sex and species consented to meet the wish you had so ardently expressed."
"I never had a wish of the kind," cried Mr Pitskiver; "and I believe you talking fellows and chattering women are all in a plot to make me ridiculous. I won't stand it any longer."
"Stand what?" enquired Mr Bristles, knitting his brows.