Rusk--
'I shan't wonder, neither need you, my dear, if he brings home a young wife
with him.'
So my father, with a kind look at her, and a very tender one on me, went
silently to the library, as he often did about that hour.
I could not help resenting my Cousin Knollys' officious recommendation of
matrimony. Nothing I dreaded more than a step-mother. Good Mrs. Rusk
and Mary Quince, in their several ways, used to enhance, by occasional
anecdotes and frequent reflections, the terrors of such an intrusion. I
suppose they did not wish a revolution and all its consequences at Knowl,
and thought it no harm to excite my vigilance.
But it was impossible long to be vexed with Cousin Monica.
'You know, my dear, your father is an oddity,' she said. 'I don't mind
him--I never did. You must not. Cracky, my dear, cracky--decidedly cracky!'
And she tapped the corner of her forehead, with a look so sly and comical,
that I think I should have laughed, if the sentiment had not been so
awfully irreverent.
'Well, dear, how is our friend the milliner?'
'Madame is suffering so much from pain in her ear, that she says it would
be quite impossible to have the honour--'
'Honour--fiddle! I want to see what the woman's like.
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