Volume I Part 4 (2/2)
”A beauty, aunt Martha?... No, I don't think she is a beauty, though I like the look of her face too; ... but she certainly is not a beauty, for she is not the least bit like you, and you are a beauty, you know.”
”And who told you that, child?”
”Oh! I have heard grandmamma and you talk about it very often.... and I heard Mr. Barnaby say, when he came in yesterday, 'How are you, my beauty?' ... and besides, I see you are a beauty myself.”
”And pray, Agnes,” replied her aunt, laughing with great good-humour, ”how do you know a beauty when you see one?”
”Why, don't I see every time I walk by Mr. Gibbs's shop, his beauties in the window, with their rosy cheeks, and their black eyes, and their quant.i.ty of fine ringlets? and you are exactly the very image of one of Mr. Gibbs's beauties, aunt Martha.”
Miss Martha remembered that there _was_ one very pretty face in the window of the village perruquier, and doubted not that the little Agnes's observation had reference to that one; it was therefore with one of her most amiable smiles that she replied,--
”You little goose!... how can I be like a painted wax image?”
But the protestations and exclamations by which the simile might have been proved good, were broken off by the approach of a maid-servant from the house, who said that Miss Betsy was waiting for them.
They found the neat little lady in her pretty sitting-room, with a lily-white cloth spread on a table near the open window, and a home-made loaf, a little bowl of native cream, and a decanter of bright spring-water, with a couple of tumblers near it.
Simple as this repast was, it was well relished by both the nieces, though decidedly served in honour of only one. However, no positive objection being made to Miss Martha's taking her share of it, she spared neither the loaf nor the cream; and remembering her mother's account of her penny repast, felt something like triumph as she ate, to think how much more she had contrived to get out of her churlish relative.
But this was all she got ... excepting, indeed, that she felt some consolation for her disappointment in having to tell her mother, on her return, that if she had children, (and of course she should, as everybody else had,) they were to have their share of all the old maid might leave.
”Ugly old hypocrite!... it won't be much, take my word for it,” replied Mrs. Compton.... ”She likes all the beggars in the parish a vast deal better than she does her own flesh and blood.... Don't talk any more of her, Martha.... I should be glad if I was never to hear her name mentioned again!”
CHAPTER V.
A VISIT FROM THE HEIRESS.--MISS AGNES WILLOUGHBY IS SENT TO SCHOOL.
In about a month after this visit, and less than a week before the day fixed upon for the happiness of Mr. Barnaby, Miss Betsy Compton very unexpectedly made a visit to her brother. She found him a good deal altered, but she found him also with his toddy and pipe, both objects of such hatred and disgust to her anchoritish spirit, that all the kind feelings which might have been awakened by his failing health, were chased by looking upon what caused it.
To see her feeble-minded brother was not, however, the only or the princ.i.p.al object of her visit to Silverton; and she permitted not many minutes to be wasted in mutual questionings that meant very little, before she let him understand what was.
”I am come to speak to you, brother,” she said, ”about little Agnes. I should like to know in what manner you intend to educate her?”
”Mrs. Compton manages all that, sister Betsy,” replied the invalid; ”and, at any rate, I am sure I have no money to teach her anything.”
”But it is a sin, brother, to let the child run wild about the garden as you would a magpie.... Do you know that she can't read?”
”No, sister Betsy, I know nothing at all about it, I tell you.... How can I help it? Am I in a condition to teach anybody to read?”
”There are others more to blame than you are, brother, no doubt; ... but let it be who's fault it will, it must not go on so. I suppose you will make no objection to my sending her to school?”
”Oh dear, no! not I; ... but you had better ask Mrs. Compton about it.”
”Very well.... But I have your consent, have I not?”
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