‘You will do as you are told, and do it without grumbling,’ was the little woman’s reply as she shook a finger in both their faces. ‘I’ve arranged my plans for the day, and I can’t have them interfered with.’
‘My dear Pen,’ again persisted the vicar, in his mildest tones, ‘that your plan is a perfectly admirable one, I do not for one moment doubt, only, as you know very well, I am not and never have been a ladies’ man, and that in the company of your charming sex I’m just as shy at fifty-five as I was at eighteen. But with Mac here the case is altogether different. All doctors know how to please and flatter the sex—it’s part of their stock-in-trade, so that Mac would be quite at home with her ladyship; whereas I—well, the fact is I had made up my mind to walk as far as’——
‘Blackstone Hollow,’ interrupted his sister, ‘in order that you might have another look at that big trout about which you dream every night, but which you will never succeed in catching as long as you live.’
‘The traitor! eh, Miss Penelope?’ cried the doctor. ‘This is neither more nor less than prevarication—yes, sir, prevarication—there’s no other word for it—and you the vicar of a parish, whose example ought to be a shining light to all men! Septimus Gaisford, I’m ashamed of you! As for Lady Renshaw’—— He ended with a snap of his fingers.
‘Neither of you is afraid of her. Of course not,’ remarked Miss Penelope. ‘You would scorn to acknowledge that you are afraid of any woman. But why run any risk in the matter? Why allow her ladyship to attack you separately, when, by keeping together and combining your forces, you would render your position impregnable?’
‘Impregnable!’ both the gentlemen gasped out.
Miss Gaisford’s merry laugh ran up the glen. ‘What a pair of delicious, elderly nincompoops you are!’ she cried. ‘Septimus, you dear old simpleton, haven’t you discovered that this woman would like nothing better than to bring you to your knees with an offer of marriage?’
‘Good gracious, Pen!’ cried the vicar with a start that nearly shook the spectacles off his nose.
‘Doctor, did you not see enough of her ladyship’s tactics last evening to understand that her plan with you is to induce you to believe that she has fallen in love with you? and when one of your sex gets the idea into his head that one of our sex is in love with him, why, then, a little reciprocity of sentiment is the almost inevitable result.’
‘The hussy!’ exclaimed Mac. ‘I should like her to be laid up for a fortnight and let me have the physicking of her!’