"I am sure," he said, "that my papa would like to hear you talk about all those things very much, Miss Torrington. I do not think that he would exactly agree with you in every word you might say: but that never seems to vex him: if the talk does but go about heaven and hell, and saints and sinners, and reprobation and regeneration, and the old man and the new birth, that is all papa cares for. I think he likes to be contradicted a little; for that, you know, makes more talk again."
"Is that the principle upon which you proceed with him yourself, Mr. Jacob? Do you always make a point of contradicting every thing he says?"
"Pretty generally, Miss Torrington, when there is nobody by, and when I make it all pass for joke. But there _is_ a law that even Miss Henrietta has been taught to obey; and that is, never to contradict him in company. Perhaps you have found that out, Miss Rosalind?"
"Will you not come in to tea, Miss Torrington?" said Henrietta, appearing at the window, with the volume in her hand which had seemed to occupy her whole attention from the time she had re-entered the drawing-room with Rosalind.
"I wish, sister," said Jacob, affecting to look extremely cross, "that you would not pop out so, to interrupt one's conversation! You might have a fellow feeling, I think, for a young lady, when she walks out of a window, and a young gentleman walks after her!"
Rosalind gave him a look from one side, and Henrietta from the other.
"Mercy on me!" he exclaimed, putting up his hands as if to guard the two sides of his face. "Four black eyes at me at once!--and so very black in every sense of the word!"
The young ladies walked together into the room, and Jacob followed, seeking the eye of his father, and receiving thence, as he expected, a glance of encouragement and applause.
When the tea was removed, Mr. Cartwright went to the piano-forte, and run his fingers with an appearance of some skill over the keys.
"I hope, my dear Miss Fanny, that you intend we should have a little music this evening?"
"If Mrs. Simpson, Miss Richards, and Miss Torrington will sing," said Fanny, "I shall be very happy to accompany them."
"What music have you got, my dear young lady?" said the vicar.