Not so the parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the
game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would
hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the law,
quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and common-sense
against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched,
---a waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and
Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had
come with her husband despite her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss
Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured
the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being disturbed.
And Master Frank--at a table by himself--was employed sometimes in
looking at his pumps and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, which his
mother had provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in her
heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of whom she was
rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls together, and
occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But those tender
diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the
ladies, except at times when, had they been little girls still, and the
governess out of the way, they would have slapped and pinched each other.
Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a
very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in water-colours, and sang, and made
card-racks and penholders, and was called an "elegant, accomplished
woman;" Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the squire's accounts, wrote the best part
of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was
called "a clever, sensible woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves;
Mrs. Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, "Harry
had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine;" Mrs.
Hazeldean said, "Carry would be a good creature but for her airs and
graces." Mrs. Dale said Mrs. Hazeldean was "just made to be a country