"Dear uncle,
forgive me; it was I who invited her."
Lucy's pathetic tones, which were fast degenerating into sobs, were
agreeably interrupted.
At one and the same moment the man and woman of the world took a new
view of the situation, looked at one another, and burst out laughing.
Both these carried a safety-valve against choler--a trait that takes
us into many follies, but keeps us out of others--a sense of humor.
The next thing to relieve the situation was the senior's comprehensive
vanity. He must recover young Arthur's reverence, which was doubtless
dissolving all this time. "Now, Arthur," he whispered, "take a lesson
from a gentleman of the old school. I hate this she-devil; but this is
at my house, so--observe." He then strutted jauntily and feebly up to
Mrs. Bazalgette: "Madam, my niece says you are her guest; but permit
me to dispute her title to that honor." Mrs. Bazalgette smiled
agreeably. She wanted to stay a day or two at Font Abbey. The senior
flourished out his arm. "Let me show you what _we_ call the
garden here." She took his arm graciously. "I shall be delighted, sir
[pompous old fool!]."
Mrs. Bazalgette steeled her mind to admire the garden, and would have
done so with ease if it had been hideous. But, unfortunately, it was
pretty--prettier than her own; had grassy slopes, a fountain, a
grotto, variegated beds, and beds a blaze of one color (a fashion not
common at that time); item, a brook with waterlilies on its bosom.
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