"Eggs, no! Bring me a grilled bone."
"Really, Fred," said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, "if
you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down
earlier. You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting; I cannot
understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings."
"That is your want of understanding, Rosy. I can get up to go hunting
because I like it."
"What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one
else and ordered grilled bone?"
"I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady," said Fred,
eating his toast with the utmost composure.
"I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable, any
more than sisters."
"I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so.
Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions."
"I think it describes the smell of grilled bone."
"Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose associated
with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs. Lemon's
school. Look at my mother; you don't see her objecting to everything
except what she does herself. She is my notion of a pleasant woman."
"Bless you both, my dears, and don't quarrel," said Mrs. Vincy, with
motherly cordiality. "Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor.
How is your uncle pleased with him?"
"Pretty well, I think. He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions and then
screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching
his toes. That's his way. Ah, here comes my grilled bone."
"But how came you to stay out so late, my dear? You only said you were
going to your uncle's."
"Oh, I dined at Plymdale's. We had whist. Lydgate was there too."
"And what do you think of him? He is very gentlemanly, I suppose.
They say he is of excellent family--his relations quite county people."
"Yes," said Fred. "There was a Lydgate at John's who spent no end of
money. I find this man is a second cousin of his. But rich men may
have very poor devils for second cousins."
"It always makes a difference, though, to be of good family," said
Rosamond, with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on
this subject. Rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she
had not been the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer. She disliked
anything which reminded her that her mother's father had been an
innkeeper. Certainly any one remembering the fact might think that
Mrs. Vincy had the air of a very handsome good-humored landlady,
accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen.