"Oh! you obstinate old man! Oh! you lazy old man!"
It was the high-pitched voice of her ladyship in reediest tones, and the time was eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when, as a rule, she was engaged in some needlework for herself, or assisting Mrs. Bormalack with the pudding, in a friendly way, while her husband continued the statement of the case, left alone in the enjoyment of the sitting-room--and his title.
The words were overheard by Harry Goslett. He had been working at his miraculous cabinet, and was now, following the example of Miss Kennedy's work-girls, "knocking off" for half an hour, and thinking of some excuse for passing the rest of the morning with that young lady. He stood in the doorway, looking across the green to the sacred windows of the Dressmakers' Association. Behind them at this moment were sitting, he knew, the Queen of the Mystery, with that most beauteous nymph, the matchless Nelly, fair and lovely to look upon; and with her, too, Rebekah the downright, herself a mystery, and half a dozen more, some of them, perhaps, beautiful. Alas! in working-hours these doors were closed. Perhaps, he thought, when the cabinet was finished he might make some play by carrying it backward and forward, measuring, fitting, altering.
"Oh! oh! oh!" she cried again in accents that rose higher and higher, "we have come all the way from America to prove our case. There's four months gone out of six--oh! oh!--and you with your feet upon a chair--oh! oh!--do you think you are back in Canaan City?"
"Clara Martha," replied his lordship, in clear and distinct tones--the window was wide open, so that the words floated out upon the summer air and struck gently upon Harry's ear--"Clara Martha, I wish I was; it is now holiday time, and the boys are out in the woods. And the schoolroom----" [he stopped, sighed deeply, and yawned]--"it was very peaceful."
"He is but a carpenter," she said; "he grovels in the shavings; he wallows in the sawdust. Fie upon him! This man a British peer? Oh! shame--shame!" Harry pictured the quivering shoulders and the finger of reproach. "Oh! oh! He is not worthy to wear a coronet. Give him a chunk of wood to whittle, and a knife, and a chair in the shade, and somethin' to rest his feet upon. That's all he wants, though Queen Victoria and all the angels was callin' for him across the ocean to take his seat in the House of Lords. Shame on him! Shame upon him!"