Again, before he took his leave, Mr. Harry had a little
therapeutic tete-a-tete with Miss Adela, which
lasted about two minutes, Mrs. Cathcart watching them
every second of the time, with her eyes as round and
wide as she could make them, for they were by nature
very long, and by art very narrow, for she rarely
opened them to any width at all. They were not
pleasant eyes, those eyes of Mrs. Cathcart’s.
Percy’s were like them, only better, for though
they had a reddish tinge, he did open them wider.
MY UNCLE PETER.
“Why don’t you write a story, Percy?”
said his mother to him next morning at breakfast.
“Plenty of quill-driving at Somerset-House,
mother. I prefer something else in the holidays.”
“But I don’t like to see you showing to
disadvantage, Percy,” said his uncle kindly.
“Why don’t you try?”
“The doctor-fellow hasn’t read one yet.
And I don’t think he will.”
“Have patience. I think he will.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want
to hear it. It’s all a confounded bore.
They’re nothing but goody humbug, or sentimental
whining. His would be sure to smell of black
draught. I’m not partial to drugs.”
The mother frowned, and the uncle tried to smile kindly
and excusingly. Percy rose and left the room.
“You see he’s jealous of the doctor,”
remarked his mother, with an upward toss of the head.
The colonel did not reply, and I ventured no remark.
“There is a vein of essential vulgarity in both
the brothers,” said the lady.
“I don’t think so,” returned the
colonel; and there the conversation ended.
Adela was practising at her piano the greater part
of the day. The weather would not admit of a
walk.
When we were all seated once more for our reading
and Mrs. Armstrong had her paper in her hand, after
a little delay of apparent irresolution, she said
all at once:
“Ralph, I can’t read. Will you read
it for me?”
“Do try to read it yourself, my dear,”
said her husband.
“I am sure I shall break down,” she answered.
“If you were able to write it, surely you are
able to read it,” said the colonel. “I
know what my difficulty would be.”
“It is a very different thing to read one’s
own writing. I could read anything else well
enough.—Will you read it for me, Henry?”
“With pleasure, if it must be any other than
yourself. I know your handwriting nearly as well
as my own. It’s none of your usual lady-hands-all
point and no character. But what do you say, Ralph?”
“Read it by all means, if she will have it so.
The company has had enough of my reading. It
will be a change of voice at least.”
I saw that Adela looked pleasedly expectant.
“Pray don’t look for much,” said
Mrs. Armstrong in a pleading tone. “I assure
you it is nothing, or at best a mere trifle. But
I could not help myself, without feeling obstinate.
And my husband lays so much on the cherished obstinacy
of Lady Macbeth, holding that to be the key to her
character, that he has terrified me from every indulgence
of mine.”
