It
would just bring back the time when she bade me never give up my
sword."
"Perhaps she is wiser now."
"That would make it even more likely that I should say what would be
better left alone. No, mother! Ten years hence, if—-"
She thought of Magnum Bonum, and said, "Sooner, perhaps!"
"No," he said, laughing. "It is only in the 'Traveller's Joy' that
all the bigwigs are out of sight, and the apothecary's boy saved the
Lord Mayor's life."
With that laugh, rather a sad one, he inserted the latch-key and
ended the discussion.
Whether Barbara were really unwilling to go was not clear, for she
had no such excuse as her brother; but she grumbled almost as much as
her aunt at the solecism of a wedding in the gentleman's home; and
for the only time in her life showed ill-humour. She was vexed with
Esther for her taste in bridesmaid's attire (hers was given by her
uncle); sarcastic to Cecil for his choice of gifts; cross to her
mother about every little arrangement as to dress; satirical on
Allen's revival of spirits in prospect of a visit to a great house;
annoyed at whatever was done or not done; and so much less tolerant
of having little Lina left on her hands, that Aunt Carey became the
child's best reliance.
Some of this temper might be put to the score of that pity for Bobus,
which Babie in her caprice had begun to dwell on, most inconsistently
with her former gaiety; but her mother attributed it to an
unconfessed reluctance to meet Lord Fordham again, and a sense that
the light thoughtlessness to which she had clung so long might
perforce be at an end.
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