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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 257
with such a person would have been ! Think of your warm heart
given away for ever to that heartless creature."
" Laura, Laura, have you not often warned me not to speak ill
of people ?" says Laura's husband.
" I can't help it sometimes," cries Laura in a transport. " I
try and do my best not to speak ill of my neighbours ; but the
worldliness of those people shocks me so that I can't bear to be
near them. They are so utterly tied and bound by conventionalities,
so perfectly convinced of their own excessive high-breeding,
that they seem to me more odious and more vulgar than quite low
people; and I'm sure Mr. Philip's friend, the Little Sister, is
infinitely more ladylike than his dreary aunt or either of his supercilious
cousins !" Upon my word, when this lady did speak her
mind, there was no mistaking her meaning.
I believe Mr. Firmin took a considerable number of people into
his confidence regarding this love affair. He is one of those
individuals who can't keep their secrets ; and when hurt he roars
so loudly that all his friends can hear. It has been remarked that
the sorrows of such persons do not endure very long ; nor surely
was there any great need in this instance that Philip's heart should
wear a lengthened mourning. Ere long he smoked his pipes, he
played his billiards, he shouted his songs ; he rode in the Park for
the pleasure of severely cutting his aunt and cousins when their
open carriage passed, or of riding down Captain Woolcomb or his
cousin Ringwood, should either of those worthies come in his way.
One day, when the old Lord Ringwood came to town for his
accustomed spring visit, Philip condescended to wait upon him,
and was announced to his Lordship just as Talbot Twysden and
Ringwood his son were taking leave of their noble kinsman. Philip
looked at them with a flashing eye and a distended nostril, according
to his swaggering wont. I daresay they on their part bore a
very mean and hangdog appearance ; for my Lord laughed at their
discomfiture, and seemed immensely amused as they slunk out of
the door when Philip came hectoring in.
" So, sir, there has been a family row. Heard all about it : at
least, their side. Your father did me the favour to marry my niece,
having another wife already ?"
" Having no other wife already, sir—though my dear relations
were anxious to show that he had."
" Wanted your money ; thirty thousand pound is not a trifle.
Ten thousand apiece for those children. And no more need of any
confounded pinching and scraping, as they have to do at Beaunash
Street. Affair off between you and Agnes? Absurd affair. So
much the better."
11 R