However, on hearing their dinner was ordered at the inn, the good lady was satisfied that to dine with her was impossible; but she insisted on their coming in to partake of wine and cake in her best parlour.
This, however, was a little more than Mr. Arden could endure, he made an excuse about seeing to the horse, and escaped; while Mrs. Hunter led the two sisters to her closely shut-up parlour, wainscoted, and hung with two staring simpering portraits of herself and her husband, clean as soap could make it, but smelling like a long closed box. She went to a cupboard in the wall, and brought out a silver salver, a rich cake, glasses and wine, and pouring out the wine, touched the glass with her lips, as she wished health and happiness to the two brides before her.
"We shall soon have another wedding in the family, if report speaks true," she added. "They say--but you should be the best informed, Madam Belamour-"We hear nothing of the matter, ma'am," said Aurelia.
"That's odd, since Mr. Belamour is young Sir Amyas's guardian; and they cannot well pass him over now he has begun life again as it were," laughed Mrs. Hunter. "'Tis said that my Lady is resolved the wedding shall be within six weeks."
"There are two words to that question," said Harriet, oracularly; "I know from good authority that young Sir Amyas is determined against the match."
"But is it true, ma'am," cried Mrs. Hunter, eagerly, "that my Lady and the Countess of Aresfield met at Bath, and that my Lady is to have 3,000 pounds down to pay off her debts before her husband comes home, the day her son is married to Lady Arabella?"
"Every word of it is true, ma'am," said Harriet, importantly.
"Well now, that folk should sell their own flesh and blood!"
"How have you heard it, sister Harriet?" asked Aurelia.
"From a sure hand, my love. No other than Mrs. Dove. She is wife to my Lady's coachman," explained Mrs. Arden to her hostess, "and nurse to the two children it is her pleasure to keep with her."
"Dear good Nurse dove!" cried Aurelia, "did she come to see you?"
"Yes, that did she! So I have it from the fountain-head, as I may say, that the poor young gentleman's hand and heart are to be made over without his will, that so his mother may not have such a schedule of debts wherewith to face her husband on his return!"