“Some don’t like so much sugar in their hams,” said Mrs. Waule. “But my poor brother would always have sugar.”
“If any person demands better, he is at liberty to do so; but, God bless me, what an aroma! I should be glad to buy in that quality, I know. There is some gratification to a gentleman”—here Mr. Trumbull’s voice conveyed an emotional remonstrance—“in having this kind of ham set on his table.”
He pushed aside his plate, poured out his glass of ale and drew his chair a little forward, profiting by the occasion to look at the inner side of his legs, which he stroked approvingly— Mr. Trumbull having all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the predominant races of the north.
“You have an interesting work there, I see, Miss Garth,” he observed, when Mary reentered. “It is by the author of Waverley : that is Sir Walter Scott. I have bought one of his works myself—a very nice thing, a very superior publication, entitled Ivanhoe . You will not get any writer to beat him in a hurry, I think—he will not, in my opinion, be speedily surpassed. I have just been reading a portion at the commencement of Anne of Jeersteen . It commences well.” (Things never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull: they always commenced, both in private life and on his handbills.) “You are a reader, I see. Do you subscribe to our Middlemarch library?”
“No,” said Mary. “ Mr. Fred Vincy brought this book.”
“I am a great bookman myself,” returned Mr. Trumbull. “I have no less than two hundred volumes in calf, and I flatter myself they are well selected. Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck, and others. I shall be happy to lend you any work you like to mention, Miss Garth.”