Chapter 49 - Page 2

Park. Lady Cumnor's woman was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one small wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear much light to her weakened eyes); I and the great leafless branches of the trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by the wind that was gathering.

It was always Lady Cumnor's habit to snub those she loved best. Her husband was perpetually snubbed by her, yet she missed him now that he was later than usual, and professed not to want her tea; but they all knew that it was only because he was not there to hand it to her, and be found fault with for his invariable stupidity in forgetting that she liked to put sugar in before she took any cream. At length he burst in.

'I beg your pardon, my lady, - I'm later than I should have been, I know. Why, haven't you had your tea yet?' he exclaimed, bustling about to get the cup for his wife.

'You know I never take cream before I've sweetened it,' said she, with even more emphasis on the 'never' than usual.

'To be sure! What a simpleton I am! I think I might have remembered it by this time. You see I met old Sheepshanks, and that's the reason of it.'

'Of your handing me the cream before the sugar?' asked his wife. It was one of her grim jokes.

'No, no! ha, ha! You're better this evening, I think, my dear. But, as I was saying, Sheepshanks is such an eternal talker, there's no getting away from him, and I had no idea it was so late!'

'Well, I think the least you can do is to tell us something of Mr Sheepshanks' conversation now you have torn yourself away from him.'

'Conversation! did I call it conversation? I don't think I said much. I listened. He really has always a great deal to say. More than Preston, for instance. And, by the way, he was telling me something about Preston; - old Sheepshanks thinks he'll be married before long, - he says there's a great deal of gossip going on about him and Gibson's daughter. They've been caught meeting in the park, and corresponding, and all that kind of thing that is likely to end in a marriage.'

'I shall be very sorry,' said Lady Harriet. 'I always liked that girl; and I can't bear papa's model land-agent.'

'I daresay it's not true,' said Lady Cumnor, in a very audible aside to Lady Harriet. 'Papa picks up stories one day to contradict them the next.'

'Ah, but this did sound like truth. Sheepshanks said all the old ladies in the town had got hold of it, and were making a great scandal out of it.'

'I don't think it does sound quite a nice story. I wonder what Clare could be doing to allow such goings on,' said Lady Cuxhaven.

'I think it is much more likely that Clare's own daughter - that pretty pawky Miss Kirkpatrick - is the real heroine of this story,' said Lady Harriet. 'She always looks like a heroine of genteel comedy, and those young ladies were capable of a