“I doubt if you have heard it, my dear,” the cherub submitted with hesitation.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Wilfer. “I make false statements, it appears? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the arrangement. By all means!” Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a deadly cheerfulness.
But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging the reluctant form of Mr. Sampson after her.
“Ma,” interposed the young lady, “I must say I think it would be much better if you would keep to the point, and not hold forth about people’s flying into people’s faces, which is nothing more nor less than impossible nonsense.”
“How!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilfer, knitting her dark brows.
“Just im‑possible nonsense, Ma,” returned Lavvy, “and George Sampson knows it is, as well as I do.”
Mrs. Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes upon the wretched George: who, divided between the support due from him to his love, and the support due from him to his love’s mamma, supported nobody, not even himself.
“The true point is,” pursued Lavinia, “that Bella has behaved in a most unsisterly way to me, and might have severely compromised me with George and with George’s family, by making off and getting married in this very low and disreputable manner—with some pew-opener