“Oh! she has no such thought,” Lawrence made haste to say. “She doesn't mean to be cross about any of these things, but only prying. She wants to overlook everybody and everything in the house, and it annoys me. I only tell you so that you may not wonder if I do speak out now and then about some small thing. Then what do you think she has proposed about my going into business?”
“Well?” Mrs. Gerald said uneasily.
“She has selected a partner for me.”
His mother waited for an explanation.
“And who should it be but John!”
“John who?” asked Mrs. Gerald wonderingly, trying to recollect [pg 079] some notable person of that name among her youthful acquaintances.
“Why, I do not know that he has any other name. The big English fellow who lets you in here, and waits at dinner, and opens and shuts the carriage-door.”
“What! you do not mean the footman?” Mrs. Gerald cried.
Her son laughed bitterly. “I asked her if he was to open the shop-door, and carry parcels, and if he would have the same sort of cockade on his hat, and she got quite angry about it. She says he has saved a good deal of money, and means to go into business, and she thinks I couldn't have a better partner. What do you think of it, mother?”
Mrs. Gerald leaned back in her chair, and put her hand up to her face, half hiding a blush of vexation.