“But I told you, during that rude fit of mine, that you were a boy--which you are--and are therefore to be laughed at and excused for falling into an ecstasy over the first pretty face you meet, and calling your silly transports, _love_! You have been punished severely enough through your self-conceit; and I can imagine that you will never care to be reminded, that at the time you were thinking you had made a conquest of Conny, she was encouraging you merely that you might serve her as a kind of dummy, with whom she might coquette whilst she indulged her real passion with her Theodore.”
Having written so far, she was pleased to suspend her raillery, to make way for large-hearted expressions of sympathy with Tom and his wife, and concluded a tolerably voluminous letter by signing herself “Your affectionate cousin.”
“P.S. Tell me all the news as it comes to hand, that is if you can find any time to waste upon T. H.”
I was so much piqued and so much pleased with this letter, that, had I had any further news to tell her--enough to find me an excuse for writing so promptly--I should there and then have sent her a reply. The part I liked most was where she had called me a boy. It was delightful to be rallied so familiarly, to be chided so saucily. And I noticed the dexterity with which she implied apologies and excuses for the conduct she seemed to reproach in me.
However, it was now about time that I made my way to Grove End. Nothing but a sense of duty could have driven me there, I assure you.
I reached the house a little before nine o’clock, and knocked very tremulously; I never remember feeling more nervous. What should I say to Conny--to _Mrs. Curling_, I mean? and what was Mrs. Curling to say to me?
When I entered the hall, I could scarcely do anything for some moments but wipe my feet. Then I knocked my uncle’s hat off a peg in trying to hang up my own. The servant opened the drawing-room door, and giving my faculties a twist, as it were, to make them resonant, I entered.
“Hallo!” said I, seeing the room empty, though the lamps were lighted, “where’s my uncle?”
In truth, I had forgotten, in my nervousness, to inquire whether he had returned from London.
“No; Mr. and Mrs. Curling have come with him.”