“I’d put up with more than that for your sake,” said Flower. “I needn’t tell people.”
“That’s all very fine,” said Mrs. Tipping, taking up the cudgels for the speechless and glaring victim of these pleasantries, “but there’s no mystery about your uncle; everybody knows him. He doesn’t disappear just as he is going to get married, and be brought back in a cab months afterwards. He isn’t full of secrets he mustn’t tell people who ought to know.”
“Never kep’ a secret in my life,” agreed Uncle Porson, whose head was buzzing under this unaccustomed praise.
“I know quite eno’ugh about Fred,” said Miss Tipping, tenderly; “when I want your opinion, mar, I’ll ask you for it.”
Mrs. Tipping’s reply was interrupted by the entrance of a young man from the jeweller’s with four brooches for Flower to present to the bridesmaids. Mrs. Tipping had chosen them, and it did not take the hapless skipper long to arrive at the conclusion that she was far fonder of bridesmaids than he was. His stock of money was beginning to dwindle, and the purchase of a second wedding suit within a month was beginning to tell even upon his soaring spirits.
“There’s another thing about Fred I don’t quite like,” said Mrs. Tipping, as she sat with the brooches ranged upon her capacious lap; “he’s extravagant. I don’t like a mean man, but one who flings his money away is almost as bad. These ’ere brooches are very pretty, and they do him credit, but I can’t say but what something cheaper wouldn’t ’ave done as well.”
“I thought you liked them,” said the indignant Flower.
“I like them well enough,” said Mrs. Tipping, solemnly; “there’s nothing to dislike in them. Seems to me they must have cost a lot of money, that’s all—I suppose I may make a remark!”
Flower changed the subject, and turning to Miss Tipping began to speak in a low voice of their new home. Miss Tipping wanted a sort of Eden with bar improvements, and it was rather difficult to find.
They had discussed the matter before, and the wily skipper had almost quarrelled with his bride-elect over the part of the country in which they were to live, Miss Tipping holding out for the east coast, while Flower hotly championed the south. Mrs. Tipping, with some emphasis, had suggested leaving it until after the honeymoon, but a poetic advertisement of an inn in Essex catching her daughter’s eye, it was decided that instant inspection should be made.