“The bookbinder? Who’s that?
You mean the tutor, I suppose! I’m not up
to the slang of this old brute of a country!”
“No, mamma; there is a man binding—or
mending rather, the books in the library. He’s
going to teach me to shoe Miss Brown! Papa wouldn’t
like me to marry a blacksmith—I mean a
bookbinder—would he?”
“Certainly not.”
“Then you would, mamma?” said Bab demurely,
with two catherine-wheels of fun in her downcast eyes.
“If you go to do anything mad now, I’ll—”
“Don’t strain your innocent invention,
mammy! I think I’ll take Mr. Lestrange!
Better anger one than both of you!”
“Tease me any more with your nonsense, and I’ll
set your father on you! Be off with you!”
BARBARA AND HER CRITICS.
While the two talked in the same pulverous fashion,
the words came very differently from the two mouths.
In the speech of the mother was more than a tone of
the vulgarity of a conscious right to lay down the
law, of the rudeness born of feeling above obedience
and incapable of error—a rudeness identical
with that of the typical vulgar duchess; the daughter’s
tone was playful, but dainty in its playfulness, and
not without a certain unconscious dignity; her lawlessness
was the freedom of the bird that cannot trespass,
not that of the quadruped forcing its way. Her
almost baby-like cheeks, her musical voice clear of
any strain of sorrow, her quick relations with the
whole world of things, her grace, more child-like
than womanly, whether she stood or sat or moved about,
all indicated a simple, fearless, true and trusting
nature. Everybody at Mortgrange liked her; nearly
everybody at Mortgrange had some different fault to
find with her; all agreed that she wanted taming—except
sir Wilton, who allowed the wildness, but would not
hear of the taming. The hour of the morning or
the night at which she would not go wandering alone
about the park, or even outside it, had not yet been
discovered.
“Why don’t you look better after your
friend, Theo?” said her father one day when
Barbara’s chair was empty at dinner—with
his cold incisive voice, a little rasping now that
the clutch of age’s hand was beginning to close
on his throat.
“She doesn’t mind me, papa,” Theodora
answered. “Do say something to her, mamma!”
“’Tis not my business to reform other
people’s children,” lady Ann returned.
“I find her exceedingly original!” remarked
the baronet.
“In her manners, certainly,” responded
his lady.
“I find them perfect. Their very audacity
renders them faultless. And the charm is that
she does not even suspect herself audacious.”
“That is her charm, I confess,” responded
Arthur; “but it is a dangerous one, and may
one day cause her to be sadly misunderstood.”
“A London drawing-room is your high court of
parliament, Arthur!” said his father.
