Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/819

Rh saying — don't presume too far on old acquaintance."

"All right, my dear fellow; you can't have fallen in love with all three of them already, and there can be no harm in telling you that they are good for a plum each, down; that's the figure, I believe, that old Peevor gives out over his wine — and then, of course, he'll cut up for ever so much more. I have often thought of making the running in that quarter myself, for they are really as nice little girls as you would meet anywhere; but somehow I'm not a good hand at that sort of thing — not a lady's man, in fact."

"It is not you, I hope, Edward Round, who have been trifling with Miss Peevor's affections?"

"No, no, my dear fellow; Miss Peevor is a little in the sere and yellow, you know; but Miss Catherine would just do for a soldier's wife, she rides so uncommon well — every bit as well as I do myself. But I see you have heard that story, although you have been only two days in the house. Yes, young Dashwood behaved like a thorough snob, as he is. Mr. Peevor offered to pay off all his debts and to settle fifty thousand on his daughter, but the young scamp broke the thing off at the last moment because the money wasn't to be made over to himself. That was rather too much of a good thing, for he would have been sure to gamble it all away in a year or two. No, he was a thorough bad lot, and the lady was well out of the bargain, for all that he is to come into the title. But I believe the poor girl has taken it very much to heart; she was really fond of the young scapegrace. Dashwood is somewhere abroad now, you know, and will have to stay there as long as his uncle lives. The old lord gives him an allowance, I believe, but won't pay his debts any more. But it was a dreadful blow to poor old Peevor too; he had set his heart on his daughter becoming a peeress.

"Yes, I know the brother a little. He is not a bit like his governor. I fancy he had rather a hard time of it in the —th at first. He used to come in for a lot of chaff about the balsam; but he is a sensible fellow, and the best rider in the regiment, I believe — does all their steeple-chase work for them, in fact, and gets on very well now. But our roads part here. Ta, ta, colonel; I shall come and look you up the first bye-day, and pay my respects to the family;" and so saying, the irrepressible Teddy turned off at the crossroad which led to Castleroyal, while Yorke pursued his course to 'The Beeches" along the road to Hamwell, half ashamed of himself for not having stopped the conversation, and yet pondering with heightened interest over the revelations poured out by his gossiping companion. So this, then, was the mystery: this the cause of the social banishment of his host and family. "And yet," he thought to himself, "how abominably unfair! One meets people every day whose antecedents are not a whit more exalted than those of my worthy friend, and manners not half so good, and yet against whom this absurd bar is not drawn. A man may make money by gambling in shares or on the turf, forsooth, and be received everywhere; yet he is to be cut because he earns his bread by honest balsam. And, after all, Peevor is a gentleman, although he is so much of a walking price-current about his property, and certainly his wife and daughters are ladies. Ladies indeed! I wonder if Master Teddy's sisters deserve the name as well? probably not, from their snobbishness on this very point. And I will be bound they are not half as pretty as little Lucy, or as sweet-tempered. How fond the children are of Lucy! there can be no deception about that part of the business, at any rate. Children are such artless things, the imposition would have been exposed at once if these little endearments had been put on for the occasion. What a loving mother Lucy would make, and loving wife too, if she cared for her husband! True, she doesn't care a bit for me yet; but what right have I to look for love at first sight when I have none to give in return? No; we had better let it be a matter of business on both sides, if it is to be, and let the love come afterwards. And yet it certainly does take the edge off courtship to have the lady offered to you in such an obvious way. The prize would seem better worth winning if there were a little more difficulty and romance in the wooing. But then, what have I to do with romance? I was romantic enough in my young days, and a pretty fool I made of myself. No; romance for me is dead and buried; the most I can look for is to make a home for myself before middle age overtakes me, a hard old bachelor."

Some such ideas as these pursued their course through the rider's mind, Lucy assuming a deeper interest in them as he dwelt on the unjust persecution, as he deemed it, suffered by her and her family, and began to be possessed with an eagerness to constitute himself her champion,