“Mr. Atherton Burney is very mild, and only needs a gentle shepherdess to make him perfectly lamb-like,” said Mr. Dormer, with an attempt at sportiveness which reminded his sister of the fabled donkey emulating the lap-dog’s playfulness.
“I never liked pastorals,” she began, but the time for joking was at an end.
The servant, in handing Mr. Dormer a glass of water, spilled part of the contents upon his plate, and stood trembling at the angry rebuke which his carelessness had called forth.
“Misnamed lords of creation,” thought Ariana for the hundredth time, as she saw what a trifle had disturbed her brother’s equanimity.
There was a dead silence for a few moments, only broken by the clatter of knives and forks, and then Mr. Dormer, casting very much such a glance at his sister-in-law as a naughty boy would at his offended mamma, muttered—“the steamer is in to-day and the banks are breaking faster than ever.”
Mrs. Dormer looked sympathetic at this intelligence, and Ariana remarked kindly—“Business troubles you then! It must be very tormenting,” and a suspicion flashed across her mind that men, after all, might sometimes have an excuse for their ill-humor.
“Well, if we are to lose our money, let us keep our temper,” she added, as she rose to leave the table. Then turning to her sister she said—“Don’t sit up for me, Harriet. If I am not at home before nine, I shall stay all night at sister Jane’s—she sent for me to spend the evening with her, and—and you know it is always quite uncertain whether Mr. Daley will be in a humor to escort me home.”
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CHAPTER III.
“If I were only sure that fishes did not feel, I should not mind hooking them,” said a lad of tender heart.