“We must make a great deal of use of you, Harry,” said Miss Coppinger. “We sadly want a beau to accompany us in the evenings when we go out. Father cannot often come with us. He comes home tired from business. We six spinsters have consequently to spend most of our time in solitude.”
“You do not look as if you had often been melancholy,” said Harry. “However, I shall be very happy to be at your service whenever you choose to command me.”
“Very prettily spoken,” answered Martha.
When Harry glanced round at his six blooming cousins he felt that they were not likely often to be left in solitude. There were a few other guests at table—Alderman Bycroft and his wife and daughter; one a full-blown rose, the other a bursting bud, giving promise of the same full proportions as her mother.
There was a young gentleman, the son of a wealthy distiller, dressed in the height of fashion, who seemed to consider that he was greatly honouring Mr Coppinger’s family by his presence, and there was another youth of unpretending appearance, who looked as if he felt himself highly honoured by the invitation, though he had in reality taken a high degree at the University, and was the descendant of a long line of proud ancestors.
The distiller, Mr Gilby, was inclined to patronise Harry, especially when he heard Lady Tryon spoken of.
“I will show you a little of London life, my boy,” he whispered. “You know nothing of it as yet, and unless you had a friend like me to introduce you, you might live ten years here and know no more of the ins and outs and doings of this great city than you do now.”
“Mr Tryon would thereby, I suspect, be more fortunate than if he were introduced to the ways of London as you suggest,” observed Mr Pennant, the pale-faced young student.
“I hope you enjoyed your dinner at your uncle’s, yesterday,” said Mr Silas Sleech, as Harry took his seat near him at his office desk the next morning. “Fine girls your cousins, don’t you think? I dine there sometimes, and I then always mind my P’s and Q’s. I flatter myself I stand well there with the fairer portion of the family, and of course our principal has a great respect for my uprightness and integrity,” and a curious leer came into Mr Sleech’s eyes which he could not repress. “Who was there, Tryon?”
Harry told him.