Читать книгу Old Father Christmas and Other Holiday Tales - Juliana Horatia Ewing - Страница 20

Miss Betty and Miss Kitty having accepted a polite invitation from Mrs. General Dunmaw, went down to tea with that lady one fine evening in this eventful summer.

Death had made a gap or two in the familiar circle during the last fourteen years, but otherwise it was quite the same except that the lawyer was married and not quite so sarcastic, and that Mrs. Brown Jasey had brought a young niece with her dressed in the latest fashion, which looked quite as odd as new fashions are wont to do, and with a coiffure “enough to frighten the French away,” as her aunt told her.

It was while this young lady was getting more noise out of Mrs. Dunmaw’s red silk and rosewood piano than had been shaken out of it during the last thirty years, that the lawyer brought his cup of coffee to Miss Betty’s side, and said, suavely, “I hear wonderful accounts of Lingborough, dear Miss Betty.”

“I am thankful to say, sir, that the farm is doing well this year. I am very thankful, for the past few years have been unfavorable, and we had begun to face the fact that it might be necessary to sell the old place. And, I will not deny, sir, that it would have gone far to break my heart, to say nothing of my sister Kitty’s.”

“Oh, we shouldn’t have let it come to that,” said the lawyer, “I could have raised a loan——”

“Sir,” said Miss Betty, with dignity; “If we have our own pride, I hope it’s an honest one. Lingborough will have passed out of our family when it’s kept up on borrowed money.”

“I could live in lodgings,” added Miss Betty, firmly, “little as I’ve been accustomed to it, but not in debt.”

“Well, well, my dear madam, we needn’t talk about it now. But I’m dying of curiosity as to the mainstay of all this good luck.”

“The turnips—” began Miss Betty.

“Bless my soul, Miss Betty!” cried the lawyer, “I’m not talking turnips. I’m talking of Lob Lie-by-the-fire, as all the country side is for that matter.”

“The country people have plenty of tales of him,” said Miss Betty, with some pride in the family goblin. “He used to haunt the old barns, they say, in my great-grandfather’s time.”

“And now you’ve got him back again,” said the lawyer.

“Not that I know of,” said Miss Betty.

On which the lawyer poured into her astonished ear all the latest news on the subject, and if it had lost nothing before reaching his house in the town, it rather gained in marvels as he repeated it to Miss Betty.

No wonder that the little lady was anxious to get home to question Thomasina, and that somewhat before the usual hour she said.—

“Sister Kitty, if it’s not too soon for the servant——”

And the parson, threading his way to where Mrs. Dunmaw’s china crape shawl (dyed crimson) shone in the bow window, said, “The clergy should keep respectable hours; especially when they are as old as I am. Will you allow me to thank you for a very pleasant evening, and to say good-night?”