Americans -- Italy -- Fiction; New England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Mrs. Lander, the doctor confessed, the second morning, was more shaken up
by her little attack than he had expected; but she decided to see the
gentleman who had asked to call on Clementina. Lord Lioncourt did not
come quite so soon as she was afraid he might, and when he came he talked
mostly to Clementina. He did not get to Mrs. Lander until just before he
was going. She hospitably asked him what his hurry was, and then he said
that he was off for Rome, that evening at seven. He was nice about hoping
she was comfortable in the hotel, and he sympathized with her in her wish
that there was a set-bowl in her room; she told him that she always tried
to have one, and he agreed that it must be very convenient where any one
was, as she said, sick so much.
Mr. Hinkle came a day later; and then it appeared that he had a mother
whose complaints almost exactly matched Mrs. Lander's. He had her
photograph with him, and showed it; he said if you had no wife to carry
round a photograph of, you had better carry your mother's; and Mrs.
Lander praised him for being a good son. A good son, she added, always
made a good husband; and he said that was just what he told the young
ladies himself, but it did not seem to make much impression on them. He
kept Clementina laughing; and he pretended that he was going to bring a
diagram of his patent right for her to see, because she would be
interested in a gleaner like that; and he said he wished her father could
see it, for it would be sure to interest the kind of man Mrs. Lander
described him to be. "I'll be along up there just about the time you get
home, Miss Clementina. When did you say it would be?"
"I don't know; pretty ea'ly in the spring, I guess."
She looked at Mrs. Lander, who said, "Well, it depends upon how I git up
my health. I couldn't bea' the voyage now."
Mr. Hinkle said, "No, best look out for your health, if it takes all
summer. I shouldn't want you to hurry on my account. Your time is my
time. All I want is for Miss Clementina, here, to personally conduct me
to her father. If I could get him to take hold of my gleaner in New
England, we could make the blueberry crop worth twice what it is."
Mrs. Lander perceived that he was joking; and she asked what he wanted to
run away for when the young Russian's card came up. He said, "Oh, give
every man a chance," and he promised that he would look in every few
days, and see how she was getting along. He opened the door after he had
gone out, and put his head in to say in confidence to Mrs. Lander, but so
loud that Clementina could hear, "I suppose she's told you who the belle
of the ball was, the other night? Went out to supper with a lord!" He
seemed to think a lord was such a good joke that if you mentioned one you
had to laugh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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