Chapter 49 - Page 2

they had taken to lying!
The idea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn't you
send the footman down the Lane, my dear?'

'I have brought no footman with me, Pa.'

'Oh indeed! But you have brought the elegant turn-out, my love?'

'No, Pa.'

'You never can have walked, my dear?'

'Yes, I have, Pa.'

He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up
her mind to break it to him just yet.

'The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little faint,
and would very much like to share your tea.'

The cottage loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth on
a sheet of paper on the window-seat. The cherubic pocket-knife,
with the first bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them where
it had been hastily thrown down. Bella took the bit off, and put it
in her mouth. 'My dear child,' said her father, 'the idea of your
partaking of such lowly fare! But at least you must have your own
loaf and your own penn'orth. One moment, my dear. The Dairy
is just over the way and round the corner.'

Regardless of Bella's dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned
with the new supply. 'My dear child,' he said, as he spread it on
another piece of paper before her, 'the idea of a splendid--!' and
then looked at her figure, and stopped short.

'What's the matter, Pa?'

'--of a splendid female,' he resumed more slowly, 'putting up with
such accommodation as the present!--Is that a new dress you have
on, my dear?'

'No, Pa, an old one. Don't you remember it?'

'Why, I THOUGHT I remembered it, my dear!'

'You should, for you bought it, Pa.'

'Yes, I THOUGHT I bought it my dear!' said the cherub, giving
himself a little shake, as if to rouse his faculties.

'And have you grown so fickle that you don't like your own taste,
Pa dear?'

'Well, my love,' he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage loaf
with considerable effort, for it seemed to stick by the way: 'I should
have thought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing
circumstances.'

'And so, Pa,' said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side instead of
remaining opposite, 'you sometimes have a quiet tea here all alone?
I am not in the tea's way, if I draw my arm over your shoulder like
this, Pa?'

'Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and
Certainly Not to the second. Respecting the quiet tea, my dear,
why you see the occupations of the day are sometimes a little
wearing; and if there's nothing interposed between the day and
your mother, why SHE is sometimes a little wearing, too.'

'I know, Pa.'

'Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window here,
with a little