Page:Precaution; a novel by Cooper, James Fenimore.djvu/129

Rh "Plagued, Mr. Moseley!" said Grace, in a voice even softer than his own. "I am sure—I am sure, we none of us think you or your dogs in the least a plague."

"Ah! Grace," and John was about to become what he had never been before—sentimental—when he saw the carriage of Chatterton, containing the dowager and Catherine, entering the parsonage gates.

Pshaw! thought John, there comes Mother Chatterton.

"Ah! Grace," said John, "there are your mother and sister returned already."

"Already!" said the young lady, and, for the first time in her life, she felt rather unlike a dutiful child. Five minutes could have made no great difference to her mother, and she would greatly have liked to hear what John Moseley meant to have said; for the alteration in his manner convinced her that his first "ah! Grace" was to have been continued in a somewhat different language from that in which the second "ah! Grace" was ended.

Young Moseley and her daughter, standing together at the open window, caught the attention of Lady Chatterton the moment she got a view of the house, and she entered with a good humor she had not felt since the disappointment in her late expedition in behalf of Catherine; for the gentleman she had had in view in this excursion had been taken up by another rover, acting on her own account, and backed by a little more wit and a good deal more money than what Kate could be fairly thought to possess. Nothing further in that quarter offering in the way of her occupation, she turned her horses' heads towards London, that great theatre on which there never was a loss for actors. The salutations had hardly passed before, turning to John, she exclaimed, with what she intended for a most motherly smile, "What! not shooting this fine day, Mr. Moseley? I thought you never missed a day in the season."

"It is rather early yet, my lady," said John, coolly, a little alarmed by the expression of her countenance.

"Oh!" continued the dowager, in the same strain, "I