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188 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
I was to have a mulatto for a rival. I am not so rich, certainly,
but I have enough. I can read and spell correctly, and write with
tolerable fluency. I could not, you know, could I, reasonably
suppose that I need fear competition, and that the black horse
would beat the bay one ? Shall I tell you what she used to say to
me ? There is no kissing and telling, mind you. No, by George !
Virtue and prudence were for ever on her lips ! She warbled little
sermons to me ; hinted gently that I should see to safe investments
of my property, and that no man, not even a father, should be the
sole and uncontrolled guardian of it. She asked me, sir, scores and
scores of little sweet timid innocent questions about the Doctor's
property, and how much did I think it was, and how had he laid it
out ? What virtuous parents that angel had ! How they brought
her up, and educated her dear blue eyes to the main chance ! She
knows the price of housekeeping, and the value of railway shares ;
she invests capital for herself in this world and the next. She
mayn't do right always, but wrong ? O fie, never ! I say, Pen,
an undeveloped angel with wings folded under her dress ; not perhaps
your mighty snow-white flashing pinions that spread out and
soar up to the highest stars, but a pair of good serviceable drab
dove-coloured wings, that will support her gently and equably just
over our heads, and help to drop her softly when she condescends
upon us. When I think, sir, that I might have been married to a
genteel angel and am single still,—oh ! it's despair, it's despair !"
But Philip's little story of disappointed hopes and bootless
passion must be told in terms less acrimonious and unfair than the
gentleman would use, naturally of a sanguine swaggering talk, prone
to exaggerate his own disappointments, and call out, roar—I daresay
swear—if his own corn was trodden upon, as loudly as some
men who may have a leg taken off.
This I can vouch for Miss Twysden, Mrs. Twysden, and all the
rest of the family :—that if they, what you call, jilted Philip, they
did so without the slightest hesitation or notion that they were
doing a dirty action. Their actions never were dirty or mean ; they
were necessary, I tell you, and calmly proper. They ate cheeseparings
with graceful silence ; they cribbed from board-wages ; they
turned hungry servants out of doors ; they remitted no chance in
their own favour; they slept gracefully under scanty coverlids;
they lighted niggard fires ; they locked the caddy with the closest
lock, and served the teapot with the smallest and least frequent
spoon. But you don't suppose they thought they were mean, or
that they did wrong ? Ah ! it is admirable to think of many, many,
ever so many respectable families of your acquaintance and mine,
my dear friend, and how they meet together and humbug each