"Uncle, I do love you;" and Lucy rose with Juno-like slowness and dignity, and, leaning over the old boy, kissed him with sudden small fury.
"Why?" asked he, eagerly, connecting this majestic squirt of affection with his last speech.
"Because you are such a nice, dear, _sarcastic_ thing. Let us drink tea in the library to-morrow, then that will be an approach to--"
With this illegitimate full stop the conversation ended, and Miss Fountain took a candle and sauntered to bed.
In church next Sunday Lucy observed a young lady with a beaming face, who eyed her by stealth in all the interstices of devotion. She asked her uncle who was that pretty girl with a _nez retrousse._
"A c.o.c.ked nose? It must be my little friend, Eve Dodd. I didn"t know she was come back."
"What a pretty face to be in such--such a--such an impossible bonnet.
It has come down from another epoch." This not maliciously, but with a sort of tender, womanly concern for beauty set off to the most disadvantage.
"O, hang her bonnet! She is full of fun; she shall drink tea with us; she is a great favorite of mine."
They quickened their pace, and caught Eve Dodd just as she took a flying leap over some water that lay in her path, and showed a charming ankle. In those days female dress committed two errors that are disappearing: it revealed the whole foot by day, and hid a section of the bosom at night.
After the usual greetings, Mr. Fountain asked Eve if she would come over and drink tea with him and his niece.
Miss Dodd colored and cast a glance of undisguised admiration at Miss Fountain, but she said: "Thank you, sir; I am much obliged, but I am afraid I can"t come. My brother would miss me."
"What--the sailor? Is he at home?"
"Yes, sir; came home last night"; and she clapped her hands by way of comment. "He has been with my mother all church-time; so now it is my turn, and I don"t know how to let him out of my sight yet awhile." And she gave a glance at Miss Fountain, as much as to say, "You understand."
"Well, Eve," said Mr. Fountain good-humoredly, "we must not separate brother and sister," and he was turning to go.
"Perhaps, uncle," said Lucy, looking not at Mr. Fountain, but at Eve--"Mr.--Mr.--"
"David Dodd is my brother"s name," said Eve, quickly.
"Mr. David Dodd might be persuaded to give us the pleasure of his company too."
"Oh yes, if I may bring dear David with me," burst out the child of nature, coloring again with pleasure.
"It will add to the obligation," said Lucy, finishing the sentence in character.
"So that is settled," said Mr. Fountain, somewhat dryly.
As they were walking home together, the courtier asked her uncle rather coldly, "Who are these we have invited, dear?"
"Who are they? A pretty girl and a man she wouldn"t come without."
"And who is the gentleman? What is he?"
"A marine animal--first mate of a ship."
"First mate? mate? Is that what in the novels is called boatswain"s mate?"
"Haw! haw! haw! I say, Lucy, ask him when he comes if he is the bosen"s mate. How little Eve will blaze!"
"Then I shall ask him nothing of the kind. Do tell me! I know admirals--they swear--and captains, and, I think, lieutenants, and, _above all,_ those little loves of midshipmen, strutting with their dirks and c.o.c.ked hats, like warlike bantams, but I never met "mates." Mates?"
"That is because you have only been introduced to the Royal Navy; but there is another navy not so ornamental, but quite as useful, called the East India Company"s."
"I am ashamed to say I never heard of it."
"I dare say not. Well, in this navy there are only two kinds of superior officers--the mates and the captain. There are five or six mates. Young Dodd has been first mate some time, so I suppose he will soon be a captain."
"Uncle!"
"Well."
"Will this--mate--swear?"
"Clearly."
"There, now. I do not like swearing on a Sunday. That wicked old admiral used to make me shudder."
"Oh," said Mr. Fountain, playing upon innocence, "he swore by the Supreme Being, "I bet sixpence.""
"Yes," said Lucy, in a low, soft voice of angelic regret.
"Ah! he was in the Royal Navy. But this is a merchantman; you don"t think he will presume to break into the monopoly of the superior branch. He will only swear by the wind and weather. Thunder and squalls! Donner and blitzen! Handspikes and halyards! these are the innocent execrations of the merchant service--he! he! ho!"
"Uncle, can you be serious?" asked Lucy, somewhat coldly; "if so, be so good as to tell me, is this gentleman--a--gentleman?"
"Well," replied the other, coolly, "he is what I call a nondescript; like an attorney, or a surgeon, or a civil engineer, or a banker, or a stock-broker, and all that sort of people. He can be a gentleman if he is thoroughly bent on it; you would in his place, and so should I; but these skippers don"t turn their mind that way. Old families don"t go into the merchant service. Indeed, it would not answer. There they rise by--by--mere maritime considerations."
"Then, uncle," began Lucy, with dignified severity, "permit me to say that, in inviting a nondescript, you showed--less consideration for me than--you--are in the habit--of doing, dearest."
"Well, have a headache, and can"t come down."
"So I certainly should; but, most unfortunately, I have an objection to tell fibs on a Sunday."
"You are quite right; we should rest from our usual employments one day-ha! ha! and so go at it fresher to-morrow--haw! ho! Come, Lucy, don"t you be so exclusive. Eve Dodd is a merry girl. She comes and amuses me when you are not here, and David, by all accounts, is a fine young fellow, and as modest as a girl of fifteen; they will make me laugh, especially Eve, and it would be hard at my age, I think, if I might not ask whom I like--to tea."
"So it would," put in Lucy, hastily; she added, coaxing, "it shall have its own way--it shall have what makes it laugh."
Long before eight o"clock the Fountains had forgotten that they had invited the Dodds.
Not so Eve. She was all in a flutter, and hesitated between two dresses, and by some blessed inspiration decided for the plainest; but her princ.i.p.al anxiety was, not about herself, but about David"s deportment before the Queen of Fashion, for such report proclaimed Miss Fountain. "And those fine ladies are so satirical," said Eve to herself; "but I will lecture him going along."
Dinner time, and, by consequence, tea time, came earlier in those days; so, about eight o"clock, a tall, square-shouldered young fellow was walking in the moonlight toward Font Abbey, Eve holding his hand, and tripping by his side, and lecturing him on deportment very gravely while dancing around him and pulling him all manner of ways, like your solid tune with your gamboling accompaniment, a combination now in vogue. All of a sudden, without with your leave or by your leave, the said David caught this light fantastic object up in his arms, and carried it on one shoulder.