Part 12 (1/2)

”Yes, Doctor,” interposes Lady Julia, blus.h.i.+ng; ”but Signor Pozzoprofondo was in the carriage too--a-a-sitting behind with the groom. He was indeed, mamma.”

”Julia, vous n'etes qu'une panache,” says Lady Kew, shrugging her shoulders, and looking at her daughter from under her bushy black eyebrows. Her ladys.h.i.+p, a sister of the late lamented Marquis of Steyne, possessed no small share of the wit and intelligence, and a considerable resemblance to the features, of that distinguished n.o.bleman.

Lady Kew bids her daughter take a pen and write:--”Monsieur le Mauvais Sujet,--Gentlemen who wish to take the sea air in private, or to avoid their relations, had best go to other places than Brighton, where their names are printed in the newspapers. If you are not drowned in a pozzo--”

”Mamma!” interposes the secretary.

”--in a pozzo-profondo, you will please come to dine with two old women, at half-past seven. You may bring Mr. Belsize, and must tell us a hundred stories.--Yours, etc., L. Kew.”

Julia wrote all the letter as her mother dictated it, save only one sentence, and the note was sealed and despatched to my Lord Kew, who came to dinner with Jack Belsize. Jack Belsize liked to dine with Lady Kew. He said, ”she was an old dear, and the wickedest old woman in all England;” and he liked to dine with Lady Julia, who was ”a poor suffering dear, and the best woman in all England.” Jack Belsize liked every one, and every one liked him.

Two evenings afterwards the young men repeated their visit to Lady Kew, and this time Lord Kew was loud in praises of his cousins of the house of Newcome.

”Not of the eldest, Barnes, surely, my dear?” cries Lady Kew.

”No, confound him! not Barnes.”

”No, d---- it, not Barnes. I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,” broke in Jack Belsize. ”I can get on with most men; but that little Barney is too odious a little sn.o.b.”

”A little what--Mr. Belsize?”

”A little sn.o.b, ma'am. I have no other word, though he is your grandson.

I never heard him say a good word of any mortal soul, or do a kind action.”

”Thank you, Mr. Belsize,” says the lady.

”But the others are capital. There is that little chap who has just had the measles--he's a clear little brick. And as for Miss Ethel----”

”Ethel is a trump, ma'am,” says Lord Kew, slapping his hand on his knee.

”Ethel is a brick, and Alfred is a trump, I think you say,” remarks Lady Kew, nodding approval; ”and Barnes is a sn.o.b. This is very satisfactory to know.”

”We met the children out to-day,” cries the enthusiastic Kew, ”as I was driving Jack in the drag, and I got out and talked to 'em.”

”Governess an uncommonly nice woman--oldish, but--I beg your pardon, Lady Julia,” cries the inopportune Jack Belsize--”I'm always putting my foot in it.”

”Putting your foot into what? Go on, Kew.”

”Well, we met the whole posse of children; and the little fellow wanted a drive, and I said I would drive him and Ethel too, if she would come.

Upon my word she is as pretty a girl as you can see on a summer's day.

And the governess said 'No,' of course. Governesses always do. But I said I was her uncle, and Jack paid her such a fine compliment, that the young woman was mollified, and the children took their seats beside me, and Jack went behind.”

”Where Monsieur Pozzoprofondo sits, bon.”

”We drove on to the Downs, and we were nearly coming to grief. My horses are young, and when they get on the gra.s.s they are as if they were mad.

It was very wrong; I know it was.”