Molly Bawn Part 55

"Well, but your story,--your story, Plantagenet," Lady Stafford cries, impatiently.

"Did you hear the story about my mother and----"

"Potts," interrupts Stafford, mildly but firmly, "if you are going to tell the story about your mother and the auctioneer I shall leave the room. It will be the twenty-fifth time I have heard it already, and human patience has a limit. One must draw the line somewhere."

"What auctioneer?" demands Potts, indignant. "I am going to tell them about my mother and the auction; I never said a word about an auctioneer; there mightn't have been one, for all I know."

"There generally _is_ at an auction," ventures Luttrell, mildly.

"Go on, Potts; I like your stories immensely, they are so full of wit and spirit. I know this one, about your mother's bonnet, well; it is an old favorite,--quite an heirloom--the story, I mean, not the bonnet. I remember so distinctly the first time you told it to us at mess: how we did laugh, to be sure! Don't forget any of the details. The last time but four you made the bonnet pink, and it must have been so awfully unbecoming to your mother! Make it blue to-night."

"Now do go on, Mr. Potts; I am dying to hear all about it," declares Molly.

"Well, when my uncle died," begins Potts, "all his furniture was sold by auction. And there was a mirror in the drawing-room my mother had always had a tremendous fancy for----"

"'And my mother was always in the habit of wearing a black bonnet,'"

quotes Sir Penthony, gravely. "I know it by heart."

"If you do you may as well tell it yourself," says Potts, much offended.

"Never mind him, Plantagenet; do go on," exclaims Cecil, impatiently.

"Well, she was in the habit of wearing a black bonnet, as it _happens_," says Mr. Potts, with suppressed ire; "but just before the auction she bought a new one, and it was pink."

"Oh, why on earth don't you say blue?" expostulates Luttrell, with a groan.

"Because it was pink. I suppose I know my mother's bonnet better than you?"

"But, my dear fellow, think of her complexion! And at first, I a.s.sure you, you always used to make it blue."

"I differ with you," puts in Sir Penthony, politely. "I always understood it was a sea-green."

"It was _pink_," reiterates Plantagenet, firmly. "Well, we had a cook who was very fond of my mother----"

"I thought it was a footman. And it really _was_ a footman, you know," says Luttrell, reproachfully.

"The butler, you mean, Luttrell," exclaims Sir Penthony, with exaggerated astonishment at his friend's want of memory.

"And she, having most unluckily heard my mother say she feared she could not attend the auction, made up her mind to go herself and at all hazards secure the coveted mirror for her----"

"And she didn't know my mother had on the new sea-green bonnet,'" Sir Penthony breaks in, with growing excitement.

"No, she didn't," says Mr. Potts, growing excited too. "So she started for my uncle's,--the cook, I mean,--and as soon as the mirror was put up began bidding away for it like a steam-engine. And presently some one in a pink bonnet began bidding too, and there they were bidding away against each other, the cook not knowing the bonnet, and my mother not being able to see the cook, she was so hemmed in by the crowd, until presently it was knocked down to my mother,--who is a sort of person who would die rather than give in,--and, would you believe it?"

winds up Mr. Potts, nearly choking with delight over the misfortunes of his maternal relative, "she had given exactly five pounds more for that mirror than she need have done!"

They all laugh, Sir Penthony and Luttrell with a very suspicious mirth.

"Poor Mrs. Potts!" says Molly.

"Oh, _she_ didn't mind. When she had relieved herself by blowing up the cook she laughed more than any of us. But it was a long time before the 'governor' could be brought to see the joke. You know he paid for it," says Plantagenet, naively.

"Moral: never buy a new bonnet," says Sir Penthony.

"Or keep an affectionate cook," says Luttrell.

"Or go to an auction," says Philip. "It is a very instructive tale: it is all moral."

"The reason I so much admire it. I know no one such an adept at pointing a moral and adorning a tale as our Plantagenet."

Mr. Potts smiles superior.

"I think the adornment rested with you and Luttrell," he says, with cutting sarcasm, answering Sir Penthony.

"Potts, you aren't half a one. Tell us another. Your splendid resources can't be yet exhausted," says Philip.

"Yes, do, Potts, and wake me when you come to the point," seconds Sir Penthony, warmly, sinking into an arm-chair and gracefully disposing an antimaca.s.sar over his head.

"A capital idea," murmurs Luttrell. "It will give us all a hint when we are expected to laugh."

"Oh, you can chaff as you like," exclaims Mr. Potts, much aggrieved; "but I wonder, if _I_ went to sleep in an arm-chair, which of _you_ would carry on the conversation?"

"Not one of them," declares Cecil, with conviction: "we should all die of mere inanition were it not for you."

"I really think they're all jealous of me," goes on Plantagenet, greatly fortified. "I consider myself by far the most interesting of them all, and the most--er----"

"Say it, Potts; don't be shy," says Sir Penthony, raising a corner of the antimaca.s.sar, so as to give his friends the full encouragement of one whole eye. "'Fascinating,' I feel sure, will be the right word in the right place here."

"It would indeed. I know n.o.body so really entertaining as Plantagenet,"

says Cecil, warmly.

"Your ladys.h.i.+p's judgment is always sound. I submit to it," returns Sir Penthony, rising to make her a profound bow.

CHAPTER XXI.

"'Why come you drest like a village maid That are the flower of the earth?'

'If I come drest like a village maid I am but as my fortunes are.'"

--_Lady Clare._

It is close on October. Already the gra.s.s has a.s.sumed its sober garb of brown; a general earthiness is everywhere. The leaves are falling,--not now in careful couples or one by one, but in whole showers,--slowly, sorrowfully, as though loath to quit the sighing branches, their last faint rustling making their death-song.

Molly's visit has drawn to an end. Her joyous month is over. To-day a letter from her brother reminding her of her promise to return is within her hand, recalling all the tender sweets of home life, all the calm pleasure she will gain, yet bringing with it a little sting, as she remembers all the gay and laughing hours that she must lose. For indeed her time at Herst has proved a good time.

"I have had a letter from my brother, grandpapa: he thinks it is time I should return," she says, accosting the old man as he takes his solitary walk up and down one of the shaded paths.

"Do you find it so dull here?" asks he, sharply, turning to read her face.