XXV.
That evening Sewell went to see an old parishioner of his who lived on the Hill, and who among his eccentricities had the habit of occupying his city house all summer long, while his family flitted with other people of fashion to the seashore. That year they talked of taking a cottage for the first time since they had sold their own cottage at Nahant, in a day of narrow things now past. The ladies urged that he ought to come with them, and not think of staying in Boston now that he had a trouble of the eyes which had befallen him, and Boston would be so dull if he could not get about freely and read as usual.
He answered that he would rather be blind in Boston than telescopic at Beverly, or any other summer resort; and that as for the want of proper care, which they urged, he did not think he should lack in his own house, if they left him where he could reach a bell. His youngest daughter, a lively little blonde, laughed with a cousin of his wife's who was present, and his wife decorously despaired. The discussion of the topic was rather premature, for they were not thinking of going to Beverly before middle of May, if they took the cottage; but an accident had precipitated it, and they were having it out, as people do, each party in the hope that the other would yield if kept at long enough before the time of final decision came.
“Do you think,” said the husband and father, who looked a whimsical tyrant at the worst, but was probably no easier to manage for his whimsicality, “that I am going to fly in the face of prosperity, and begin to do as other people wish because I'm pecuniarily able to do as I please?”
The little blonde rose decisively from the low chair where she had been sitting. “If papa has begun to reason about it, we may as well yield the point for the present, mamma. Come, Lily! Let us leave him to Cousin Charles.”
“Oh, but I say!” cried Cousin Charles, “if I'm to stay and fight it out with him, I've got to know which side I'm on.”
“You're on the right side,” said the young lady over her shoulder; “you always are, Cousin Charles.”
Cousin Charles, in the attempt to kiss his hand toward his flatterer, pulled his glasses off his nose by their cord. “Bromfield,” he said, “I don't see but this commits me against you.” And then, the ladies having withdrawn, the two men put on that business air with which our sex tries to atone to itself for having unbent to the lighter minds of the other; heaven knows what women do when the men with whom they have been talking go away.
“If you should happen to stay in town,” continued the cousin treacherously, “I shall be very glad, for I don't know but I shall be here the greater part of the summer myself.”