who could not remember names, to put the cart before the horse in endeavoring to call names to his recollection, and he always spoke of the Frenchman as Villeport. In facetious moments he would reduce this again to Vile Port, maintaining that this was the original name. Although it was by no means a complimentary cognomen, Mr. Fox had no intention of showing disrespect, for he had a rough kind of regard for the tutor, and only vented a poor joke at his expense, deriving his inspiration perhaps from the remembrance of a compound beverage familiar to Fox in his younger days in the country which had the honor of his birth. If Portville was euphonious, why not Foxville? Such was the argument of Mrs. Fox, and that settled the question.
Mrs. Foxville was the daughter of a grocer, who had so many daughters that all he could do for them was to make them a home and allow them a limited portion for their wardrobe—totally insufficient, according to their unanimous opinion, for their position! Mrs. Foxville was the oldest, and was the first to enter into wedlock. She would have scorned an alliance with a butcher, so superior did she think her father’s calling, though on what grounds she never clearly stated; but the prosperity of young Fox proved a compensation strong enough to convert a woman’s uprising negative into a positive affirmative.
The correctness of the lady’s judgment could not be questioned in the days that lengthened Fox into Foxville. She continued, however, to regard herself as more than the equal of her husband; and she always spoke of my house, my family, my children Matilda, Augustus, and Susy, as if poor Foxville had no concern
or partnership in the property. Sometimes he would slip in ‘our’ in place of ‘my,’ and he always spoke in this manner himself, but both the correction or amendment and the example had no effect on the ‘singular’ appropriation, which seemed, it may be supposed, to convey higher origin and standing than if lowered by a joint ownership.
Miss Matilda Foxville’s characteristics have sufficiently developed themselves, and Augustus, beyond being a plague to his elder sister, had no character at all. He was an existence, and little more; still, he was not without importance as the heir of a goodly estate.
Foxville House never failed to throw open its hospitable portals during Christmas week, and, not many days before the receipt of Susy’s letter, a large number of guests had found a warm welcome within them. Nathaniel Wodehouse was invariably the life of these social gatherings, and in the estimation of the Misses Foxville evidently he possessed qualifications for the prominent part he took. He stood high in favor with Miss Matilda, there is no denying the fact. For him more than for any other male thing, she chignoned, and painted, and got herself up in the best style of fashion. She nearly succeeded in reducing twenty-six to twenty by other than arithmetical rules. But what, after all, are twenty-six summers? No great span in the life of a really handsome woman; yet, in Miss Matilda, so unpliable was her disposition, and so set was her general deportment, that candor must admit that the six years beyond twenty had produced a perceptible difference. She made the best of them, however, for Nathaniel Wodehouse.
Can it be wondered at, therefore, that she thought he had some appreciative
taste? He was charming and good-looking most certainly; and he was very gallant, as he ought to have been, to Miss Foxville. No one invited him with more empressement than Matilda did to revisit Foxville House. Susy was shy and reserved; Matilda had outlived all that, and safely pronounced Nathaniel excellent company: so did Mrs. Foxville—so did Mr. Foxville. Augustus had no settled conviction on this head; and Susy was silent.
Even when Matilda spoke to her under sisterly secrecy, and used the epithets which she subsequently wished to revoke, Susy committed herself no further than by an exclamation of “Do you think so?” accompanied by a smile of doubtful acquiescence. When, however, Matilda, repenting of her admission, boldly denied it, Susy, as we have seen; held her to it unflinchingly.
It is sometimes good to come after others, and Scripture, politeness, and good sense forbid our presumptuously taking the best places. Susy enjoyed in this respect an advantage which nature had given her. She had all the benefit of being eight years younger than her sister, for she was at once the youngest, the prettiest, and the most amiable of the Foxvilles. Nathaniel would have been blind indeed if he had not made that discovery; and what that discovery led to, the intimated tenor of his letter has abundantly proved. One result, however, he had not foreseen, and that was the burning jealousy it excited in the bosom of Matilda Foxville, although he was prepared to incur her displeasure.