"Hunting; nonsense! It was you that frightened her, Barbara," the

divine interposed. "You're a clever woman, but you've got a devil of a

temper; and you're a screw with your money, Barbara."

"You'd have been screwed in gaol, Bute, if I had not kept your money."

"I know I would, my dear," said the Rector, good-naturedly. "You ARE a

clever woman, but you manage too well, you know": and the pious man

consoled himself with a big glass of port.

"What the deuce can she find in that spooney of a Pitt Crawley?" he

continued. "The fellow has not pluck enough to say Bo to a goose. I

remember when Rawdon, who is a man, and be hanged to him, used to flog

him round the stables as if he was a whipping-top: and Pitt would go

howling home to his ma--ha, ha! Why, either of my boys would whop him

with one hand. Jim says he's remembered at Oxford as Miss Crawley

still--the spooney.

"I say, Barbara," his reverence continued, after a pause.

"What?" said Barbara, who was biting her nails, and drumming the table.

"I say, why not send Jim over to Brighton to see if he can do anything

with the old lady. He's very near getting his degree, you know. He's

only been plucked twice--so was I--but he's had the advantages of

Oxford and a university education. He knows some of the best chaps

there. He pulls stroke in the Boniface boat. He's a handsome feller.

D---- it, ma'am, let's put him on the old woman, hey, and tell him to

thrash Pitt if he says anything. Ha, ha, ha!

"Jim might go down and see her, certainly," the housewife said; adding

with a sigh, "If we could but get one of the girls into the house; but

she could never endure them, because they are not pretty!" Those

unfortunate and well-educated women made themselves heard from the

neighbouring drawing-room, where they were thrumming away, with hard

fingers, an elaborate music-piece on the piano-forte, as their mother

spoke; and indeed, they were at music, or at backboard, or at

geography, or at history, the whole day long. But what avail all these

accomplishments, in Vanity Fair, to girls who are short, poor, plain,

and have a bad complexion? Mrs. Bute could think of nobody but the

Curate to take one of them off her hands; and Jim coming in from the

stable at this minute, through the parlour window, with a short pipe

stuck in his oilskin cap, he and his father fell to talking about odds

on the St. Leger, and the colloquy between the Rector and his wife

ended.

Mrs. Bute did not augur much good to the cause from the sending of her

son James as an ambassador, and saw him depart in rather a despairing

mood. Nor did the young fellow himself, when told what his mission was

to be, expect much pleasure or benefit from it; but he was consoled by

the thought that possibly the old lady would give him some handsome

remembrance of her, which would pay a few of his most pressing bills at

the commencement of the ensuing Oxford term, and so took his place by

the coach from Southampton, and was safely landed at Brighton on the

same evening? with his portmanteau, his favourite bull-dog Towzer, and

an immense basket of farm and garden produce, from the dear Rectory

folks to the dear Miss Crawley. Considering it was too late to disturb

the invalid lady on the first night of his arrival, he put up at an

inn, and did not wait upon Miss Crawley until a late hour in the noon

of next day.




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