“Do you suppose I would ask her?”
“Ridiculous boy!” sneered my step-mother. “But taking for granted that just at present she does share your juvenile folly and poetical want of common sense, how long will it last, do you think? A bride in her honeymoon is a very different being from a wife of a few years' standing. She knows nothing of the value of money now; but when she finds herself the mother of a family, with daughters growing [pg 608] up to be married and portioned, she will awake to the value of it in a way that will astonish you. And when a few years hence she asks you for an account of her own splendid fortune, what answer will you make to her? You were too delicate to hurt her feelings by any inquiries about so insignificant a matter, so you left it to her uncle to see to it!”
“I said I was prepared to do what was necessary to protect her interests,” I replied. “I will speak to her on the subject this afternoon. What am I to do next?”
“Write to Sir Simon Harness, and beg him to fix a day to come down here; and when he has done so, you will write to the family lawyer, and request him to be here to meet him. Of course you will write to Admiral de Winton, as your father's executor and your nearest relative now.”
“What a confounded fuss it will be!” I exclaimed impatiently, and, kicking over a footstool, I started up and began to walk up and down the room. “I wish I had married a milkmaid!”
“Don't talk like a fool, Clide!” said my step-mother. “I do believe your pretended delicacy and fear of hurting Isabel's feelings are nothing but a cloak to cover your dread of a fuss!”
I was going to protest, but the door opened, and Isabel walked in.
She looked so beautiful in her pink cashmere drapery, breaking into the brown old wainscoted room like a sunbeam, that even my step-mother was surprised into an involuntary tribute of admiration; and when my wife, coming up to her in that pretty, kitten-like way that was so bewitching, stooped down to be kissed, my step-mother responded quite warmly, and actually put up her hand to caress the sunny face after she had kissed it.
I felt so proud of my lovely Isabel, and so grateful to my step-mother for this unfeigned recognition of her loveliness, that I was seized with a strong impulse to embrace them both on the spot. I restrained it, however, and we sat down to breakfast; my wife, as mistress of the house, presiding over the cups and saucers.
“Clide,” began my step-mother (she prefaced every remark by my Christian name), as soon as Isabel had provided us respectively with tea and coffee, “what are we going to do to make Mrs. de Winton welcome amongst us? Now, don't answer me with your usual lazy outcry about fuss. My dear,” she said, turning to Isabel, “you will have a great deal to do in the way of reforming him; and if you succeed, it will be little short of a miracle.”