Expostulation.

Seek not the feast in these irreverent robes;

Go to my chamber — put on clothes of mine.

The Taming of the Shrew.

It was with a mixture of anxiety, vexation, and resentment, that Mowbray, just when he had handed Lady Penelope into the apartment where the tables were covered, observed that his sister was absent, and that Lady Binks was hanging on the arm of Lord Etherington, to whose rank it would properly have fallen to escort the lady of the house. An anxious and hasty glance cast through the room, ascertained that she was absent, nor could the ladies present give any account of her after she had quitted the gardens, except that Lady Penelope had spoken a few words with her in her own apartment, immediately after the scenic entertainment was concluded.

Thither Mowbray hurried, complaining aloud of his sister’s laziness in dressing, but internally hoping that the delay was occasioned by nothing of a more important character.

He hastened up stairs, entered her sitting-room without ceremony, and knocking at the door of her dressing-room, begged her to make haste.

“Here is the whole company impatient,” he said, assuming a tone of pleasantry; “and Sir Bingo Binks exclaiming for your presence, that he may be let loose on the cold meat.”

“Paddock calls,” said Clara from within; “anon — anon!”

“Nay, it is no jest, Clara,” continued her brother; “for here is Lady Penelope miauling like a starved cat!”

“I come — I come, greymalkin,” answered Clara, in the same vein as before, and entered the parlour as she spoke, her finery entirely thrown aside, and dressed in the riding-habit which was her usual and favourite attire.

Her brother was both surprised and offended. “On my soul,” he said, “Clara, this is behaving very ill. I indulge you in every freak upon ordinary occasions, but you might surely on this day, of all others, have condescended to appear something like my sister, and a gentlewoman receiving company in her own house.”

“Why, dearest John,” said Clara, “so that the guests have enough to eat and drink, I cannot conceive why I should concern myself about their finery, or they trouble themselves about my plain clothes.”

“Come, come, Clara, this will not do,” answered Mowbray; “you must positively go back into your dressing-room, and huddle your things on as fast as you can. You cannot go down to the company dressed as you are.”

“I certainly can, and I certainly will, John — I have made a fool of myself once this morning to oblige you, and for the rest of the day I am determined to appear in my own dress; that is, in one which shows I neither belong to the world, nor wish to have any thing to do with its fashions.”

“By my soul, Clara, I will make you repent this!” said Mowbray, with more violence than he usually exhibited where his sister was concerned.

“You cannot, dear John,” she coolly replied, “unless by beating me; and that I think you would repent of yourself.”

“I do not know but what it were the best way of managing you,” said Mowbray, muttering between his teeth; but, commanding his violence, he only said aloud, “I am sure, from long experience, Clara, that your obstinacy will at the long run beat my anger. Do let us compound the point for once — keep your old habit, since you are so fond of making a sight of yourself, and only throw the shawl round your shoulders — it has been exceedingly admired, and every woman in the house longs to see it closer — they can hardly believe it genuine.”

“Do be a man, Mowbray,” answered his sister; “meddle with your horse-sheets, and leave shawls alone.”

“Do you be a woman, Clara, and think a little on them, when custom and decency render it necessary. — Nay, is it possible! — Will you not stir — not oblige me in such a trifle as this?”

“I would indeed if I could,” said Clara; “but since you must know the truth — do not be angry — I have not the shawl. I have given it away — given it up, perhaps I should say, to the rightful owner. — She has promised me something or other in exchange for it, however. I have given it to Lady Penelope.”

“Yes,” answered Mowbray, “some of the work of her own fair hands, I suppose, or a couple of her ladyship’s drawings, made up into fire-screens. — On my word — on my soul, this is too bad! — It is using me too ill, Clara — far too ill. If the thing had been of no value, my giving it to you should have fixed some upon it. — Good-even to you; we will do as well as we can without you.”

“Nay, but, my dear John — stay but a moment,” said Clara, taking his arm as he sullenly turned towards the door; “there are but two of us on the earth — do not let us quarrel about a trumpery shawl.”

“Trumpery!” said Mowbray; “It cost fifty guineas, by G — which I can but ill spare — trumpery!”

“O, never think of the cost,” said Clara; “it was your gift, and that should, I own, have been enough to have made me keep to my death’s day the poorest rag of it. But really Lady Penelope looked so very miserable, and twisted her poor face into so many odd expressions of anger and chagrin, that I resigned it to her, and agreed to say she had lent it to me for the performance. I believe she was afraid that I would change my mind, or that you would resume it as a seignorial waif; for, after she had walked a few turns with it wrapped around her, merely by way of taking possession, she dispatched it by a special messenger to her apartment at the Well.”

“She may go to the devil,” said Mowbray, “for a greedy unconscionable jade, who has varnished over a selfish, spiteful heart, that is as hard as a flint, with a fine glossing of taste and sensibility!”

“Nay, but, John,” replied his sister, “she really had something to complain of in the present case. The shawl had been bespoken on her account, or very nearly so — she showed me the tradesman’s letter — only some agent of yours had come in between with the ready money, which no tradesman can resist. — Ah, John! I suspect half of your anger is owing to the failure of a plan to mortify poor Lady Pen, and that she has more to complain of than you have. — Come, come, you have had the advantage of her in the first display of this fatal piece of finery, if wearing it on my poor shoulders can be called a display — e’en make her welcome to the rest for peace’s sake, and let us go down to these good folks, and you shall see how pretty and civil I shall behave.”

Mowbray, a spoiled child, and with all the petted habits of indulgence, was exceedingly fretted at the issue of the scheme which he had formed for mortifying Lady Penelope; but he saw at once the necessity of saying nothing more to his sister on the subject. Vengeance he privately muttered against Lady Pen, whom he termed an absolute harpy in blue-stockings; unjustly forgetting, that in the very important affair at issue, he himself had been the first to interfere with and defeat her ladyship’s designs on the garment in question.

“But I will blow her,” he said, “I will blow her ladyship’s conduct in the business! She shall not outwit a poor whimsical girl like Clara, without hearing it on more sides than one.”

With this Christian and gentlemanlike feeling towards Lady Penelope, he escorted his sister into the eating-room, and led her to her proper place at the head of the table. It was the negligence displayed in her dress, which occasioned the murmur of surprise that greeted Clara on her entrance. Mowbray, as he placed his sister in her chair, made her general apology for her late appearance, and her riding-habit. “Some fairies,” he supposed, “Puck, or such like tricksy goblin, had been in her wardrobe, and carried off whatever was fit for wearing.”

There were answers from every quarter — that it would have been too much to expect Miss Mowbray to dress for their amusement a second time — that nothing she chose to wear could misbecome Miss Mowbray — that she had set like the sun, in her splendid scenic dress, and now rose like the full moon in her ordinary attire, (this flight was by the Reverend Mr. Chatterly,)— and that “Miss Mowbray being at hame, had an unco gude right to please hersell;” which last piece of politeness, being at least as m............