If there's one thing I cannot
bear it's being alone in the evening. And to think that anybody chooses
to be alone when he needn't! Look at that wretch there," and she
pointed to Georgie, "who lives all by himself instead of marrying.
Liking to be alone is the worst habit I know; much worse than drink."
"Now do leave me alone," said Georgie.
"I won't, my dear, and when dinner is over Mrs Weston and I are going
to put our heads together, and when you come out we shall announce to
you the name of your bride. I should put a tax of twenty shillings on
the pound on all bachelors; they should all marry or starve."
Suddenly she turned to Colonel Boucher.
"Oh, Colonel," she said. "What have I been saying? How dreadfully
stupid of me not to remember that you were a bachelor too. But I
wouldn't have you starve for anything. Have some more fish instantly to
shew you forgive me. Georgie change the subject you're always talking
about yourself."
Georgie turned with admirable docility to Mrs Weston.
"It's too miserable for you," he said. "How will you get on without
Elizabeth? How long has she been with you?"
Mrs Weston went straight back to where she had left off.
"So I said, 'What have you come to tell me?' quite cheerfully, thinking
it was a tea-cup. And she said, 'I'm going to be married, ma'am,' and she
blushed so prettily that you'd have thought she was a girl of twenty,
though she was seventeen when she came to me,--no, she was just
eighteen, and that's fifteen years ago, and that makes her
thirty-three.
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