Mrs. Hazleby looked surprised.
'On the demonstration we have this day received of your superior judgement, Ma'am,' said Rupert, 'though indeed we could hardly have doubted it before.'
'Pray let me understand you, Mr. Merton,' said Mrs. Hazleby.
'Have you not heard of the circumstance to which I allude?' said Rupert; 'for if you are not already aware of it, I must beg to be excused from relating it; I could not bear to give so great a shock to a lady's feelings.'
'Oh! you mean about Fido,' said Mrs. Hazleby, almost smiling; 'yes, Lucy told me that you had found him. Really, my girls are so careless, I can trust nothing to them.'
'Indeed, Madam,' said Rupert, 'I assure you that nothing could have been more heart-rending than the scene presented to our eyes when the Miss Hazlebys first became aware of the untimely fate of their favourite. Who could behold it with dry eye--or dry foot?' added he, in an under-tone, with a side glance at Anne.
Rupert contrived to talk so much nonsense to Mrs. Hazleby, that he charmed her with his attention, gave her no time to say anything about Fido, and left Anne much surprised that she had never found out that he was laughing at her. At dinner, the grouse he had brought came to their aid; Mrs. Hazleby was delighted to taste a blackcock once more, and was full of reminiscences of Inchlitherock; and by means of these recollections, and Rupert's newly imported histories, Sir Edward and Mr. Woodbourne contrived to make the conversation more entertaining than Elizabeth thought it ever could be in any party in which Mrs.
Hazleby was present.
Afterwards in the drawing-room, Dora's bulrushes and the other children's purchases were duly admired, and the little people, being rather fatigued, were early sent to bed, although Edward vehemently insisted, with his eyes half shut, that he was not in the least sleepy. The elder girls then arranged themselves round the table. Helen was working a bunch of roses of different colours; Anne admired it very much, but critics were not wanting to this, as to every other performance of Helen's.
'It is all very pretty except that rose,' said Katherine, 'but I am sure that is an unnatural colour.--Is it not, Anne ?'
'I do not think that I ever saw one like it,' said Anne; 'but that is no proof that there is no such flower.'
'What do you think, Lizzie?' said Katherine; 'ought not Helen to alter it?'
Anne was rather alarmed by this appeal; but Elizabeth answered carelessly, without looking up, 'Oh! you know I know nothing about that kind of work.'
'But you can tell what colour a rose is,' persisted Katherine; 'now do not you think Helen will spoil her work with that orange-coloured rose? who ever heard of such a thing?'
Helen was on the point of saying that one of the gable-ends of the house at Dykelands was covered with a single rose of that colour, but she remembered that Dykelands was not a safe subject, and refrained.
'Come, do not have a York and Lancaster war about an orange-coloured rose, Kate,' said Elizabeth, coming up to Helen; 'why, Anne, where are your eyes? did you never see an Austrian briar, just the the colour of Helen's lambs-wools?'
Though this was a mere trifle, Helen was pleased to find that Elizabeth could sometimes be on her side of the question, and worked on in a more cheerful spirit.
'Why, Anne,' said Elizabeth, presently after, 'you are doing that old wreath over again, that you were about last year, when I was at Merton Hall.'
'Yes,' said Anne; 'it is a pattern which I like very much.'
'Do you like working the same thing over again?' said Katherine; 'I always get tired of it.'
'I like it very much,' said Anne; 'going over the same stitches puts me in mind of things that were going on when I was working them before.--Now, Lizzie, the edge of that poppy seems to have written in it all that delightful talk we had together, at home, about growing up, that day when Papa and Mamma dined out, and we had it all to ourselves. And the iris has the whole of Don Quixote folded up in it, because Papa was reading it to us, when I was at work upon it.'
'There certainly seems to be a use and pleasure in never sitting down three minutes without that carpet-work, which I should never have suspected,' said Elizabeth.
'Anne thinks as I do,' said Mrs. Woodbourne; 'I find carpet-work quite a companion to me, but I cannot persuade Lizzie to take any pleasure in it.'
'I have not time for it,' said Elizabeth, 'nor patience if I had time. It is all I can persuade myself to do to keep my clothes from being absolute rags.'
'Yes,' said Katherine; 'you always read with Meg in your lap, when you have no mending to do; you have been six months braiding that frock.'
'Oh! that is company work,' said Elizabeth; 'I began it at Merton Hall for Dora, but I believe Winifred must have it now. But now it is so nearly done, that I shall finish while you are here.'
Elizabeth did not however long continue working, for as soon as tea was over she proposed to play at the game of Conglomeration, as she had talked of doing in the course of the walk. 'I give notice, however,' said she, 'that we are likely to laugh more than will suit the gravity of the elders, therefore I recommend adjourning to the inner drawing-room.--Mamma, may we have candles there?'
Consent was given, and while the candles were being brought, and Elizabeth was looking out some paper, Anne whispered to her brother, 'Rupert, pray say nothing about Fido, or the Mechanics' Institute, or something unpleasant will surely come of it.'
'Oh! Anne,' was the answer, 'you have robbed me of my best couplet--
Weeping like forsaken Dido,
When she found the slaughtered Fido.
Where is the use of playing if there is to be no fun?'
