Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/695

Rh household of that sort: the servants were a sad trouble; he had had to change his butler three times in the last year, although he had got a treasure at last. And then cooks were so troublesome, Mrs. Peevor was nearly worried out of her life by them, although the housekeeper had a high salary, and ought to save her from such trouble; with her delicate health this naturally made him very anxious, after his past sorrows. This Yorke understood to be an allusion to the premature decease of a former Mrs. Peevor. Then somehow the conversation came round to his children; and Mr. Peevor — although still meandering off at intervals into the price-current line — explained that although he had made it a duty to bring up his girls with comforts around them — indeed what right-thinking father could do less? — yet he hoped he had not spoilt them for a somewhat plainer life. The girls were girls, and of course could not expect to be always in their father's home; his first duty was towards his son, and the daughters must be content with a slenderer portion of such goods as he might possess. Not indeed that there would not be a trifle for each of them, if anything happened to him; in fact he might say he had not forgotten his daughters' claims upon him, and he had been able to reserve something substantial out of the means with which Providence had blessed him — nor would he let a trifle more or less stand in the way of a girl's happiness. Indeed the warning he had had from poor dear Maria's sad affair would naturally make him anxious to avoid such a misfortune again. And then, while Yorke was about to express his interest in this subject, en which his sympathy seemed to be invited, the worthy gentleman rambled off in maundering strains to the china and the bronzes, while his amused guest pursued the train of ideas suggested by what had gone before. Which of the girls, he thought, does he want me to marry? And to how many single gentlemen visiting here by turns has he made a similar confidence? And under the influence of this plain speaking, the sort of interest with which he had been regarding Lucy Peevor's pretty face during dinner was succeeded by a feeling of distrust.

When the gentlemen rose at last from table, — having, however, made between them a very small inroad on the contents of the five decanters, — and entered the drawing-room — the yellow drawing-room as it was called (they had assembled before dinner in another called the blue drawing-room), and Yorke now saw this apartment for the first time, gorgeously furnished and ablaze with lights — they found the ladies all more or less asleep over their books and newspapers; but although there was a general waking up, it could not be said that the evening was very lively. It was now Mr. Peevor's turn to be sleepy; Mrs. Peevor was languid and silent; Miss Maria evidently posed as the confirmed invalid, from whom no share in entertaining company was to be expected; the young ladies, in awe of their visitor, the first colonel they had ever met, were shy, and did not volunteer to lead in the conversation. But Yorke was too modest to put down the silence to this cause; the young ladies he had been accustomed to meet were mostly talkative, not to say fast, and he put their reserve down to indifference or gaucherie. But observing that there was an enormous grand pianoforte in a corner of the room, he proceeded, as in duty bound, to put the young ladies through their musical paces. Miss Maria, however, it appeared, neither played nor sang; but Miss Catherine at his invitation sat down at the instrument — her father remarking by the way that the girls always had a course of finishing lessons from the best masters when the family was in town — and played a little piece in a more or less feeble manner; after which Miss Lucy, who sang but did not play, warbled nervously a couple of English ballads without any particular tune to her sister's accompaniment, while the guest could not help feeling sorry that she should exhibit herself to such disadvantage, for certainly she was a very pretty little girl. After this the numerous pictures on the walls naturally suggested a reference to the fine arts, and an inquiry as to the young ladies' accomplishments in this line. Miss Maria did not draw, but her sisters after a little pressing produced their portfolios — Mr. Peevor remarking parenthetically that he had secured Jenkins, A. R. A., to give them lessons during the two last seasons in town; a very rising man Jenkins, and of course as a rule he did not take pupils, but Mr. Peevor had made a special arrangement with him, which the guest readily understood to have been connected with the drawing of a cheque for an amount unusual in such transactions. Miss Catherine drew large heads of uncertain outline in chalk. Miss Lucy little landscapes in muddy water-colours, and Yorke knew so little about the matter that he was able to praise the performances (which