Mrs. Sharp thought to herself that this was a slight exaggeration. Still on the whole she had little to complain of. Mr. Sharp always remembered the time when he cast sad distant eyes at her, Miranda Piper,--more enchanting than a will-case, more highly cherished than the deed-box of an Earl. Nothing but impudence had enabled him to marry her; thereby his impudence was exhausted in that one direction, and he ever remained polite to her. "Then, Luke, will you just take your favourite chair, and answer me only one question?" As she said these words, Mrs. Sharp took care to set the chair so that she could get the last gleam of sunset on her dear lord's face. Her husband thoroughly understood all this, and accepted the situation. "Now, do tell me, Luke--you notice everything, though you do not always speak of it--have you observed how very strangely Kit has been going on for some time now? And have you any idea of the reason? And do you think that we ought to allow it, my dear?" "Yes, Mrs. Sharp, I have observed it. You need not be at all uneasy about it. I am observing him very closely. When I disapprove, I shall stop it at once." "But surely, my dear, surely I, his mother, am not to be kept in the dark about it? I know that you always take your own course, and your course is quite sure to be the right one; but surely, my dear, when something important is evidently going on about my own child, you would never have the heart to keep it from me. I could not endure it; indeed, I could not. I should fret myself away to skin and bone." "It would take a long time to do that, my dear," replied Mr. Sharp, as he looked with satisfaction at her fine plump figure. It pleased him to hear, as he often did, that there was not in Oxford a finer couple of middle-aged people than Mr. and Mrs. Sharp. "However, I should be exceedingly grieved ever to initiate such a process. But first, before I tell you anything at all, I will ask you to promise two things most clearly." "My dear, I would promise fifty things rather than put up with this cruel anxiety." "Yes, I dare say. But I do not want rash promises, Miranda. You must pledge yourself to two things, and keep your pledges." "I will do so in a moment, with the greatest pleasure. You would never ask anything wrong, I am sure. Only do not keep me waiting so." "In the first place, then, you must promise me, whether my plan turns out well or ill, on no account to blame me for it, but to give me the credit of having acted for the best throughout." "Nothing can be easier than to promise that. My dear, you always do act for the best; and what is more, the best always comes of it." "Very well, you promise that; also, you must pledge yourself to conceal from every one, and most of all from Christopher, everything I am about to tell you, and to act under my directions." "To be sure, my dear; to be sure, I will. Nothing is more reasonable than that I should keep your secrets."