As he sat before her, with his cap between his feet (I need hardly observe that, like the other ornaments of the Old Country, he wore a velvet hunting-cap), and the horn handle of his whip in his mouth, she took the lead in the conversation; indeed, I am prepared to lay my reader considerable odds, that, whenever he meets a lady and gentleman together, the former is talking, and the latter listening.
“You’ve only just arrived, I hear; and, indeed, what unpromising weather you find us with! I told Papa, this morning, I was sure we shouldn’t be able to hunt; and I went and took my habit off directly after breakfast. If there’s one thing I abominate more than another, it’s a fog; and at Tilton Wood, too, of all places in the world! I’ve no idea of leaving a good fire, to go and sit there with the others, like a lot of crows in a mist; and this weather always lasts three days; and to-morrow they meet at the best place they have; and I hope you like our country?”
Mr. Sawyer could not conscientiously affirm that he had yet _seen_ it; so he mumbled out an unintelligible answer, and the young lady went off again at score:
“Harborough’s getting quite a gay place, I declare. So many gentlemen come there now, to hunt; and it’s so convenient for the railroad; and I dare say you know Mr. Savage, and Captain Struggles, and Major Brush; and _are_ you going to give us a Harborough ball?”
Mr. Sawyer was sufficiently experienced to take heart of grace at this juncture, and reply, “Oh, certainly—certainly! I’m sure it will be a capital ball. May we hope, Miss Dove, that you will come to it?”
The eyelashes went down immediately; and Miss D. was, no doubt, on the eve of making an appropriate reply, when the announcement of luncheon, and the simultaneous return of _Paterfamilias_, broke up the pair of _tête-à-têtes_, and the party adjourned to the dining-room, all, apparently, on pretty good terms with themselves—Mr. Sawyer inwardly proud of having got so well out of the ball difficulty; “Cissy” a little elevated with the conviction that she had made a fresh conquest (not that it was any novelty, but the feeling is always more or less agreeable); Papa ready for luncheon, and sanguine about the four-year-old; Mamma enchanted to have caught a good listener; and the Honourable Crasher in his usual state of easy and affable _nonchalance_.