"Too many," said Alick, "odd numbers. I shall go down and call on Miss
Williams. May I come back, Lady Temple, and have a holiday from the
mess?"
"I shall be very glad; only I am afraid there is no dinner."
"So much the better. Only let me see you begin, or I shall never dare to
express an opinion for the future."
"Mamma, do pray, pray begin; the afternoon is wasting like nothing!"
cried Conrade of the much-tried patience. "And Aunt Rachel," he added,
in his magnanimity, "you shall be my partner, and I'll teach you."
"Thank you, Conrade, but I can't; I promised to be at home at four,"
said Rachel, who had all this time been watching with curious interest
which influence would prevail--whether Alick would play for Fanny's
sake, or Fanny abstain for Alick's sake. She was best satisfied as it
was, but she had still to parry Bessie Keith's persuasive determination.
Why would she go home? it certainly was to inspect the sketches of the
landscape-painter. "You heard, Alick, of the interesting individual who
acted the part of Rachel's preserver," she added.
The very force of Rachel's resolution not to be put out of countenance
served to cover her with the most uncomfortable blushes, all the more at
the thought of her own unlucky exclamation. "I came here," said Alick,
coolly, "to assist in recovering the beloved remains from a watery
grave;" and then, as Bessie insisted on hearing the Avoncester version,
he gave it; while Grace added the intelligence that the hero was a
clergyman, sinking the opinions, as too vague to be mentioned, even had
not the company been too flighty for a subject she thought serious and
painful. "And he is at this moment sketching the Spinster's Needles!"
said Bessie. "Well, I am consoled. With all your resolve to flatten down
an adventure, fate is too strong for you. Something will come of it. Is
not the very resolve that it shall not be an adventure a token?"
"If any one should wish to forget it, it is you, I think, Bessie," said
Alick. "Your admirable sagacity seems to have been at fault. I thought
you prided yourself on your climbing."
"Up a slippery perpendicular--"
"I know the place," he gravely answered.
"Well," exclaimed Bessie, recovering herself, "I am not a mermaid nor
even a dear gazelle, and, in my humble opinion, there was far more grace
in preventing heroism from being 'unwept, unnoticed, and unsung,' than
in perilling my own neck, craning down and strangling the miserable
beast, by pulling him up by the scrough of his neck! What an
introduction would have been lost!"
"If you are going to play, Bessie," said her brother, "it would be kind
to take pity upon those boys."