struggling to keep under and extinguish a devil of
laughter, by which his human weakness was shaken:
He retired from the room with the speed of a voyager
about to pay tribute on high seas. Mr. Pole cast
a pregnant look at the servants’ row as he closed
the book; but the expression of his daughters’
faces positively signified that no remark was to be
made, and he contained himself. Later, the ladies
told him that Gainsford had done no worse than any
uneducated man would have been guilty of doing.
Mrs. Chump had, it appeared, a mother’s feeling
for one flat curl on her rugged forehead, which was
often fondly caressed by her, for the sake of ascertaining
its fixity. Doubts of the precision of outline
and general welfare of this curl, apparently, caused
her to straighten her back and furtively raise her
head, with an easy upward motion, as of a cork alighted
in water, above the level of the looking-glass on
her left hand—an action she repeated, with
a solemn aspect, four times; at which point Gainsford
gave way. The ladies accorded him every extenuation
for the offence. They themselves, but for the
heroism of exalted natures, must have succumbed to
the gross temptation. “It is difficult,
dear papa, to bring one’s mind to religious
thoughts in her company, even when she is quiescent,”
they said. Thus, by the prettiest exercise of
charity that can be conceived, they pleaded for the
man Gainsford, while they struck a blow at Mrs. Chump;
and in performing one of the virtues laid down by
religion, proved their enemy to be hostile to its
influences.
Mrs. Chump was this morning very late. The office
of morning reader was new to Mr. Pole, who had undertaken
it, when first Squire of Brookfield, at the dictate
of the ladies his daughters; so that, waiting with
the book before him and his audience expectant, he
lacked composure, spoke irritably in an under-breath
of ‘that woman,’ and asked twice whether
she was coming or not. At last the clump of her
feet was heard approaching. Mr. Pole commenced
reading the instant she opened the door. She stood
there, with a face like a petrified Irish outcry.
An imploring sound of “Pole! Pole!”
issued from her. Then she caught up one hand to
her mouth, and rolled her head, in evident anguish
at the necessitated silence. A convulsion passed
along the row of maids, two of whom dipped to their
aprons; but the ladies gazed with a sad consciousness
of wicked glee at the disgust she was exciting in
the bosom of their father.
“Will you shut the door?” Mr. Pole sternly
addressed Mrs. Chump, at the conclusion of the first
prayer.
“Pole! ye know that money ye gave me in notes?
I must speak, Pole!”
“Shut the door.”