Sweet and Twenty Read Free

no one to share the joke with. “Do you mean to have her?”she quizzed.
    “Oh yes, as long as she finds me a legible partie, I shall be satisfied, for I don’t want to be a spinster like her and you.”
    “A heavy reader like yourself will certainly want a legible gentleman,”Lillian returned, and found occasion to blow her nose immediately and to go to her room very shortly afterward, to dissolve in mirth on her bed.
     

Chapter 2
     
    The sole interest at dinner was the food, for there was nothing that could be called conversation at the table. Martha outlined her plans for calling at St. Christopher’s Abbey, and neither Melanie nor Sara made any objection. IfMr. Fellows should find it odd that his next-door neighbors suddenly came to call after not doing so for twenty years, it was not thought worth a mention. Lillian did say that a country gentleman was not particularly likely to be home to greet callers on a busy weekday morning, but her aunt was a step ahead of her. She had sent over a note, in Lady Monteith’s name, expressing their intention.
    After dinner, Martha retired early and took Lillian upstairs with her to outline to her what she had discovered of Mr. Fellows, ending up with, “And I see you have discovered your cousins are fools, Lillian, but that is no reason you must make it obvious to Mr. Fellows. Pray keep your sharp tongue between your teeth, and don’t be clever or satirical.”
    “Why Auntie, I am hurt! You never accused me of it before, only of trying to be. I wouldn’t do a thing to turn such a legible partie off from Cousin Sara.”
    Her aunt regarded her through narrowed eyes. “You are not enunciating properly. Young ladies nowadays think it smart to mumble.”
    “You know well enough we haven’t a word to say for ourselves, and try to hide the dearth of our conversation with a mumble.”
    “Yes . . . well, pray don’t mumble before Mr. Fellows. It will be up to us to do the talking, to try to conceal their total ignorance, and it must be done discreetly. No flirting with him.”
    “How should it be possible for us two spinsters to set up a flirtation, at our age?”Lillian laughed and gave her fusty old aunt a hug.
    “No manners!”Martha grouched, not deceiving her niece in the least that she disliked such treatment.
    “Manners enough that I shan’t flirt with Mr. Fellows. Unless he should prove to be handsome, of course.”
    Martha gave up and decided that if worse came to worst, Lillian should marry Fellows and be put in charge of finding Sara a different husband.
    The four ladies called on Mr. Fellows early the next morning. Martha was busy pointing out the advantages of his estate as they went along: stonework in good repair, at least twenty bedrooms in that house if she knew anything, and the shrubberies neatly trimmed. She was similarly pleased with the interior of her niece’s future home. Good taste was displayed in the fine old furnishings and, of far more importance in her view, there was no dust or dirt in evidence, but a pleasing smell of beeswax and turpentine hanging on the air, indicating the work of a well-ordered staff.
    Martha was, of course, interested to see the groom above all, and to determine that he didn’t wear high shirt-points or use a scent. His plain blue jacket proved acceptable, and his faun trousers and Hessians received an approving nod, on account of their not being buckskins and topboots in which to receive a visit from ladies. Her hypercritical eyes scarcely saw that he was a well-set-up gentleman with a passing handsome face. He was either too polite or lacking in interest to inquire the reason for the visit, but accepted it as though it were a commonplace.
    For ten minutes the five sat conversing about the weather and straightening out the relationship in which the four visitors stood to each other. Lillian found it odd that the gentleman’s eyes should not more often stray to Sara, she was so exquisitely beautiful; and as she had