As she said "your accounts and so forth," she looked at the table
from which Mr. Aylett had arisen to set a chair for her. There was a
pile of account-books at the side against the wall, but they were
shut, and over heaped by pamphlets and newspapers; while before the
owner's seat lay an open portfolio, an unfinished letter within it.
Winston wiped his pen with deliberation, closed the portfolio,
snapped to the spring-top of his inkstand, and finally wheeled his
office chair away from the desk to face his visitor.
"Is it upon business that you wish to speak to me?"
He always disdained circumlocution, prided himself upon the
directness and simplicity of his address. This acted now as a
dissuasive to the sentimental address Mrs. Sutton had meditated as a
means of winning the flinty walls behind which his social affections
and sympathies were supposed to be intrenched. Had her mission been
in behalf of any other cause, she would have drawn off her forces
upon some pretext, and effected an ignominious retreat. Nerved by
the thought of Mabel's bashfulness and solicitude, and Frederic's
strangerhood, she stood to her guns.
Winston heard her story, from the not very coherent preamble, to the
warm and unqualified endorsement of Frederic Chilton's credentials,
and her moved mention of the mutual attachment of the youthful pair,
and never changed his attitude, or manifested any inclination to
stay the narration by question or comment. When she ceased speaking,
his physiognomy denoted no emotion whatever. Yet, Mabel was his
nearest living relative. She had been bequeathed to his care, when
only ten years old, by the will of their dying father, and grown up
under his eye as his child, rather than a sister. And he was
hearing, for the first time, of her desire to quit the home they had
shared together from her birth, for the protection and companionship
of another. Mrs. Sutton thought herself pretty well versed in
"Winston's ways," but she had expected to detect a shade of softness
in the cold, never-bright eyes and anticipated another rejoinder
than the sentence that stands at the head of this chapter.
"And so you know nothing of this gentleman beyond what he has told
you of his character and antecedents?" he said--the slender white
fingers, his aunt fancied, looked cruel even in their idleness,
lightly linked together while his elbows restod upon the arms of his
chair.
"My dear Winston! what a question! Haven't I told you that he is my
husband's namesake and godson! I was at his fathers house a score of
times, at least, in dear Frederic's life-time. It was a charming
place, and I never saw a more lovely family. I recollect this boy
perfectly, as was very natural, seeing that his name was such a
compliment to my husband. He was a fine, manly little fellow, and
the eldest son. The christening-feast was postponed, for some reason
I do not now remember, until he was two years old. It was a very
fine affair. The company was composed of the very elite of that part
of Maryland, and the Bishop himself baptized the two
babies--Frederic, and a younger sister. I know all about him, you
see, instead of nothing!"