Mr. Scarborough's Family Part 21

"It comes from eating too much toffy," said Georgina. "I told her it would."

"How very nasty you are!" said Miss Carroll. "Do leave the child and her ailments alone!"

"Poor papa isn't very well, either," said Sophy, who was supposed to be her father's pet.

"I hope his state of health will not debar him from dining with his friends to-night," said Miss Grey.

"You have always something ill-natured to say about papa," said Sophy.

"Nothing will ever keep him back when conviviality demands his presence." This came from his afflicted wife, who, in spite of all his misfortunes, would ever speak with some respect of her husband's employments. "He wasn't at all in a fit state to go to-night, but he had promised, and that was enough."

When they had waited three-quarters of an hour Amelia began to complain,--certainly not without reason. "I wonder why Uncle John always keeps us waiting in this way?"

"Papa has, unfortunately, something to do with his time, which is not altogether his own." There was not much in these words, but the tone in which they were uttered would have crushed any one more susceptible than Amelia Carroll. But at that moment the cab arrived, and Dolly went down to meet her father.

"Have they come?" he asked.

"Come," she answered, taking his gloves and comforter from him, and giving him a kiss as she did so. "That girl up-stairs is nearly famished."

"I won't be half a moment," said the repentant father, hastening up-stairs to go through his ordinary dressing arrangement.

"I wouldn't hurry for her," said Dolly; "but of course you'll hurry.

You always do, don't you, papa?" Then they sat down to dinner.

"Well, girls, what is your news?"

"We were out to-day on the Brompton Road," said the eldest, "and there came up Prince Chitakov's drag with four roans."

"Prince Chitakov! I didn't know there was such a prince."

"Oh, dear, yes; with very stiff mustaches, turned up high at the corners, and pink cheeks, and a very sharp, n.o.bby-looking hat, with a light-colored grey coat, and light gloves. You must know the prince."

"Upon my word, I never heard of him, my dear. What did the prince do?"

"He was tooling his own drag, and he had a lady with him on the box. I never saw anything more tasty than her dress,--dark red silk, with little fluffy fur ornaments all over it. I wonder who she was?"

"Mrs. Chitakov, probably," said the attorney.

"I don't think the prince is a married man," said Sophy.

"They never are, for the most part," said Amelia; "and she wouldn't be Mrs. Chitakov, Uncle John."

"Wouldn't she, now? What would she be? Can either of you tell me what the wife of a Prince of Chitakov would call herself?"

"Princess of Chitakov, of course," said Sophy. "It's the Princess of Wales."

"But it isn't the Princess of Christian, nor yet the Princess of Teck, nor the Princess of England. I don't see why the lady shouldn't be Mrs.

Chitakov, if there is such a lady."

"Papa, don't bamboozle her," said his daughter.

"But," continued the attorney, "why shouldn't the lady have been his wife? Don't married ladies wear little fluffy fur ornaments?"

"I wish, John, you wouldn't talk to the girls in that strain," said their mother. "It really isn't becoming."

"To suggest that the lady was the gentleman's wife?"

"But I was going to say," continued Amelia, "that as the prince drove by he kissed his hand--he did, indeed. And Sophy and I were walking along as demurely as possible. I never was so knocked of a heap in all my life."

"He did," said Sophy. "It's the most impertinent thing I ever heard. If my father had seen it he'd have had the prince off the box of the coach in no time."

"Then, my dear," said the attorney, "I am very glad that your father did not see it." Poor Dolly, during this conversation about the prince, sat angry and silent, thinking to herself in despair of what extremes of vulgarity even a first cousin of her own could be guilty. That she should be sitting at table with a girl who could boast that a reprobate foreigner had kissed his hand to her from the box of a fashionable four-horsed coach! For it was in that light that Miss Grey regarded it.

"And did you have any farther adventures besides this memorable encounter with the prince?"

"Nothing nearly so interesting," said Sophy.

"That was hardly to be expected," said the attorney. "Jane, you will have a gla.s.s of port-wine? Girls, you must have a gla.s.s of port-wine to support you after your disappointment with the prince."

"We were not disappointed in the least," said Amelia.

"Pray, pray, let the subject drop," said Dolly.

"That is because the prince did not kiss his hand to you," said Sophy.

Then Miss Grey sunk again into silence, crushed beneath this last blow.

In the evening, when the dinner-things had been taken away, a matter of business came up, and took the place of the prince and his mustaches.

Mrs. Carroll was most anxious to know whether her brother could "lend"

her a small sum of twenty pounds. It came out in conversation that the small sum was needed to satisfy some imperious demand made upon Mr.

Carroll by a tailor. "He must have clothes, you know," said the poor woman, wailing. "He doesn't have many, but he must have some." There had been other appeals on the same subject made not very long since, and, to tell the truth, Mr. Grey did require to have the subject argued, in fear of the subsequent remarks which would be made to him afterward by his daughter if he gave the money too easily. The loan had to be arranged in full conclave, as otherwise Mrs. Carroll would have found it difficult to obtain access to her brother's ear. But the one auditor whom she feared was her niece. On the present occasion Miss Grey simply took up her book to show that the subject was one which had no interest for her; but she did undoubtedly listen to all that was said on the subject.

"There was never anything settled about poor Patrick's clothes," said Mrs. Carroll, in a half-whisper. She did not care how much her own children heard, and she knew how vain it was to attempt so to speak that Dolly should not hear.

"I dare say something ought to be done at some time," said Mr. Grey, who knew that he would be told, when the evening was over, that he would give away all his substance to that man if he were asked.

"Papa has not had a new pair of trousers this year," said Sophy.

"Except those green ones he wore at the races," said Georgina.

"Hold your tongue, miss!" said her mother. "That was a pair I made up for him and sent them to the man to get pressed."

"When the hundred a year was arranged for all our dresses," said Amelia, "not a word was said about papa. Of course, papa is a trouble."

"I don't see that he is more of a trouble than any one else," said Sophy. "Uncle John would not like not to have any clothes."

"No, I should not, my dear."

"And his own income is all given up to the house uses." Here Sophy touched imprudently on a sore subject. His "own" income consisted of what had been saved out of his wife's fortune, and was thus named as in opposition to the larger sum paid to Mrs. Carroll by Mr. Grey. There was one hundred and fifty pounds a year coming from settled property, which had been preserved by the lawyer's care, and which was regarded in the family as "papa's own."