Page:The Small House at Allington Vol 2.djvu/134

116 to be your mother? What would your mamma say if she saw you at it?"

"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Cradell.

"It's all very well your laughing, but I hate such folly. If I see a young man in love with a young woman, I respect him for it;" and then she looked at Johnny Eames. "I respect him for it,—even though he may now and then do things as he shouldn't. They most of 'em does that. But to see a young man like you, Mr. Cradell, dangling after an old married woman, who doesn't know how to behave herself; and all just because she lets him to do it;—ugh!—an old broomstick with a petticoat on would do just as well! It makes me sick to see it, and that's the truth of it. I don't call it manly; and it ain't manly, is it, Miss Spruce?"

"Of course I know nothing about it," said the lady to whom the appeal was thus made. "But a young gentleman should keep himself to himself till the time comes for him to speak out,—begging your pardon all the same, Mr. Cradell."

"I don't see what a married woman should want with any one after her but her own husband," said Amelia.

"And perhaps not always that," said John Eames.

It was about an hour after this when the front-door bell was rung, and a scream from Jemima announced to them all that some critical moment had arrived. Amelia, jumping up, opened the door, and then the rustle of a woman's dress was heard on the lower stairs. "Oh, laws, ma'am, you have given us sich a turn," said Jemima. "We all thought you was run away."

"It's Mrs. Lupex," said Amelia. And in two minutes more that ill-used lady was in the room.

"Well, my dears," said she, gaily, "I hope nobody has waited dinner."

"No; we didn't wait dinner," said Mrs. Roper, very gravely.

"And where's my Orson? Didn't he dine at home? Mr. Cradell, will you oblige me by taking my shawl? But perhaps you had better not. People are so censorious; ain't they, Miss Spruce? Mr. Eames shall do it; and everybody knows that that will be quite safe. Won't it, Miss Amelia?"

"Quite, I should think," said Amelia. And Mrs. Lupex knew that she was not to look for an ally in that quarter on the present occasion. Eames got up to take the shawl, and Mrs. Lupex went on.

"And didn't Orson dine at home? Perhaps they kept him down