“Take my advice, Susy,” said that horrible Augustus. “Breakfast first, and dessert afterwards.”
“Dessert indeed! It may be some dreadful intelligence. So none of
your interference, Gussy!” rejoined Matilda.
“Then I would not spoil my appetite; and my recommendation holds good,” pursued that provoking brother.
“Ay! ay,” said Foxville senior; “your breakfast first, girl.” And this put an end to the dispute, for the old gentleman saw that Susy was pained at the discussion.
II.
It was true, as Miss Matilda Foxville had observed, that her sister Susy was the most regular in that exemplary household whenever there was a demand on her energies in domestic affairs, or on her good nature in diffusing happiness and cheerfulness around her. The fact that she had deviated from her usual course into the exceptional irregularity referred to, naturally called for comment such as any strange occurrence would provoke; and the uninitiated as naturally puzzled themselves with unsatisfactory conjectures. But the plain truth was this: Susy’s absence was caused by nothing less than a consciousness that a particular letter would arrive for her that morning. She imagined that she should betray less concern about the letter, and keep her nerves more under control, by an apparently accidental absence of a few minutes from the breakfast-table, than if she ran the risk of being present at the opening of the post-bag, and of manifesting her expectation and her too probable excitement at its realization.
Susy had, as we have seen, only partially succeeded; but, under shelter of the timely command of her father, she managed to conceal a great deal of her uneasiness at the expense of a charge of indifference
toward her correspondents—a charge she was disposed to invite rather than disprove.
This little ruse, however, she was unable to carry very much further; for Matilda, more and more perplexed, and proportionably more curious, than ever, became, after the morning meal, more endearing in both manner and speech towards her sister than was customary with one who generally adopted the language of admonition or complaint. It was very clear that these famous time-honored weapons for eliciting obedience and respect would fail in the present instance; and Matilda had not spent twenty-six years of her valuable existence without acquiring an amount of knowledge that led her to that certain conclusion. But wheedling and an implied solicitude for her sister’s welfare were more insidious and keener instruments to open the confidence-chest of the unsuspecting Susy.