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194 THE ADVENTURES OF PHILIP
understand, dear Mrs. Matcham, no engagement between them.
He is eager, hot-headed, impetuous, and imprudent, as we all
know. She has not seen the world enough—is not sure of herself,
poor dear child ! Therefore every circumspection, every caution
is necessary. There must be no engagement, no letters between
them. My darling Agnes does not write to ask him to dinner
without showing the note to me or her father. My dearest girls
respect themselves." "Of course, my dear Mrs. Twysden, they
are admirable, both of them. Bless you, darlings ! Agnes, you
look radiant ! Ah, Rosa, my child, I wish you had dear Blanche's
complexion !"
"And isn't it monstrous keeping that poor boy hanging on
until Mr. Woolcomb has made up his mind about coming forward
?" says dear Mrs. Matcham to her own daughter, as her
brougham-door closes on the pair. " Here he comes ! Here is
his cab. Maria Twysden is one of the smartest women in England
—that she is."
"How odd it is, mamma, that the beau cousin and Captain
Woolcomb are always calling, and never call together!" remarks
the ingenue.
" They might quarrel if they met. They say young Mr. Firmin
is very quarrelsome and impetuous !" says mamma.
" But how are they kept apart ?"
" Chance, my dear ! mere chance !" says mamma. And they
agree to say it is chance—and they agree to pretend to believe
one another. And the girl and the mother know everything about
Woolcomb's property, everything about Philip's property and expectations,
everything about all the young men in London, and
those coming on. And Mrs. Matcham's girl fished for Captain
Woolcomb last year in Scotland, at Loch-hookey ; and stalked him
to Paris; and they went down on their knees to Lady Banbury
when they heard of the theatricals at the Cross ; and pursued that
man about until he is forced to say, " Confound me ! Hang me !
it's too bad of that woman and her daughter, it is now, I give
you my honour it is ! And all the fellows chaff me ! And she
took a house in Regent's Park, opposite our barracks, and asked
for her daughter to learn to ride in our school—I'm blest if she
didn't, Mrs. Twysden! and I thought my black mare would have
kicked her off one day—I mean the daughter—but she stuck on
like grim death ; and the fellows call them Mrs. Grim Death and
her daughter. Our surgeon called them so, and a doosid rum fellow
—and they chaff me about it, you know—ever so many of the fellows
do—and I'm not going to be had in that way by Mrs. Grim Death
and her daughter ! No, not as I knows, if you please !"