“Yes, perfectly,” replied Sarah. “Pray don’t put it into his head that he is not, or you will make him more indolent than ever. He wants exercise, that is all. I wish him to ride on horseback before breakfast.”
“At what hour do you breakfast?” inquired Mrs. Eldon.
“At six,” replied her sister.
“At six at this season!” exclaimed Mrs. Eldon. “Why it can scarcely be light. Does Mr. Allen like such early hours?”
“No,” answered Mrs. Allen, laughing, “he would greatly prefer nine, I believe. But such indolent habits destroy all order and regularity in a household.”
“Now, Mrs. Eldon, I appeal to you,” said her brother-in-law, good-humoredly, “if there is any use in being up at candle-light. I tell Sarah we have the twenty-four hours before us. I do not see the use of hurrying so. It appears to me I hardly get asleep before the bell rings for breakfast.”
“The use of early rising,” replied Sarah, “is that we need never hurry. There is time for every thing, and unless the master and mistress are up, every thing stands still. And, after all, it only depends upon habit whether we dislike it or not;” and there was something in her tone and manner that implied it was a habit her husband must acquire.
Now in fact Mr. Allen was not strong; but Sarah, who had never been ill for an hour, and scarcely knew what it was to be fatigued, had no more comprehension of the languor of a feeble frame, than she had mercy for a weak mind, and, consequently, the breakfast bell rang as pitilessly at break of day, as if Mr. Allen had been endowed with her own “steel and whalebone constitution.” Strong health makes one sometimes unfeeling, and so it was with Sarah. She thought a good walk or long ride a panacea for all the ills flesh is heir to, and that if sickness was not sin, it was what she considered next to it—laziness.
“And now, Sarah,” said Mrs. Eldon, “I want a favor of you. I want you to ask young Brandon and his wife to your party next week.”
“Which one?” inquired Mrs. Allen. “I did not know Frank was married, for I don’t suppose you mean the other.”