“Well, really,” said she, “I shall be forced to ask you to leave the room if you proceed at this rate. Children, will you protect me from the interruption and the studied insults of this man?”
“Father,” said Charles, “for Heaven's sake will you allow her to state the result of her visit? We are all very anxious to hear it; none more so than I.”
“Please except your elder brother,” said Harry, laughing, “whose interest you know, Charley, is most concerned.”
“Well, perhaps so,” said Charles; “of course, Harry—but proceed, mother, we shan't interrupt you.”
“O, go on,” said his mother, “go on; discuss the matter among you, I can wait; don't hesitate to interrupt me; your father there has set you that gentlemanly example.”
“It must surely be good when it comes,” said Harry,with a smile; “but do proceed, my dear mother, and never mind these queer folk; go on at once, and let us know all: we—that is, myself—are prepared for the worst; do proceed, mother.”
“Am I at liberty to speak?” said she, and she looked at them with a glance that expressed a very fierce interrogatory. They all nodded, and she resumed:
“Well, I have seen these people, I say; I have made a proposal of marriage between Harry and Alice, and that proposal is—”
She paused, and looked around her with an air of triumph; but whether that look communicated the triumph of success, or that of her inveterate enmity and contempt for them ever since the death of old Hamilton, was as great a secret to them as the Bononian enigma. There was a dead silence, much to her mortification, for she would have given a great deal that her husband had interrupted her just then, and taken her upon the wrong tack.
“Well,” she proceeded, “do you all wish to hear it?”