An American when he has spent a pleasant day will
tell you that he has had a ‘good time’.
I think that Mrs Dobbs Broughton, if she had ever
spoken the truth of that day’s employment would
have acknowledged that she had had a ‘good time’.
I think that she enjoyed her morning’s work.
But as for Conway Dalrymple, I doubt whether he did
enjoy his morning’s work. ’A man
may have too much of this sort of thing, and then he
becomes very sick of his cake.’ Such was
the nature of his thoughts as he returned to his own
abode.
Why don’t you have an
‘it’ for yourself?
Of course it came to pass that Lily Dale and Emily
Dunstable were soon very intimate, and that they saw
each other every day. Indeed, before long they
would have been living together in the same house had
it not been that the squire had felt reluctant to
abandon the independence of his own lodgings.
When Mrs Thorne had pressed her invitation for the
second, and then for the third time, asking them both
to come to her large house, he had begged his niece
to go and leave him alone. ’You need not
regard me,’ he had said, speaking not with the
whining voice of complaint, but with that thin tinge
of melancholy which was usual to him. ’I
am so much alone down in Allington, that you need not
mind leaving me.’ but Lily would not go on those
terms, and therefore they still lived together in
the lodgings. Nevertheless Lily was every day
at Mrs Thorne’s house, and thus a great intimacy
grew up between the girls. Emily Dunstable had
neither brother nor sister, and Lily’s nearest
male relative in her own degree was now Miss Dunstable’s
betrothed husband. It was natural therefore that
they should at any rate try to like each other.
It afterwards came to pass that Lily did go to Mrs
Thorne’s house, and she stayed there for a while;
but when that occurred the squire had gone back to
Allington.
Among other generous kindnesses Mrs Thorne insisted
that Bernard should hire a horse for his cousin Lily.
Emily Dunstable rode daily, and of course Captain
Dale rode with her;—and now Lily joined
the party. Almost before she knew what was being
done she found herself provided with hat and habit
and horse and whip. It was a way with Mrs Thorne
that they who came within the influence of her immediate
sphere should be made to feel that the comforts and
luxuries arising from her wealth belonged to a common
stock, and were the joint property of them all.
Things were not offered and taken and talked about,
but they made their appearance, and were used as a
matter of course. If you go to stay at a gentleman’s
house you understand that, as a matter of course, you
will be provided with meat and drink. Some hosts
furnish you also with cigars. A small number
give you stabling and forage for you horse; and a
very select few mount you on hunting days, and send
