Lady Tippins

“ Take it away!’ As with a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if nourished upon similar meats, she might come to be like that charmer, which would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippins tries a youthful sally or two, and tries the eye-glass; but, from the impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all weapons rebound powerless.
Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns support each other in being unimpressible. ”

“ She had usually sat between Jacob Bailey and Flora May, sat there with an inward protest. She shrank from contact with the imbecile girl: the instinctive shrinking of the healthy from the sick, the unconscious cruelty of the normal toward the abnormal. Hitherto she had given no sign of this, ashamed of an instinct that was yet too strong for her; conscious, too, under the skin of her mind, of the warmth of compassion, the tenderness of courtesy, with which Pippin always treated the poor girl. If she had been the First Lady of the Land, he could have shown her no more attention, Mary thought. ”

“ So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late.
"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can behave so!"
Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this sort ”

“ Tipping, “he'll be cute. There's one thing, Mr. Robinson: if you try to get away from those who love you and are looking after you, there'll be a fight first, then there'll be a police court fuss, and then we shall find out what the Government mean by it.”
Captain Flower sat down in an easy posture as though he intended a long stay, and in a voice broken with emotion murmured something about home, and rest, and freedom from danger.
“That's just it,” said Mrs. Tipping, “here you are, and here you'll stay. After you're married, it'll be Matilda's affair; and now let's have some tea.” ”

“ Their beauty would have been a great pleasure to her if Tippy had not impressed upon her the fact that looking in the mirror makes one vain, and it's wicked to be vain. One way in which Tippy guarded her against the sin of vanity was to mention some of her bad points, such as her mouth being a trifle too large, or her nose not quite so shapely as her mother's, each time anyone unwisely called attention to her "glorious hair." ”

“ If he times his coming so as to do one knife a day—why—there's quite a plenty of knives and mebbe she'd scare up some scissors too—Pippin sees a long vista of Mary-brightened days stretching before him. He bids her good day—since it must be so—almost cheerfully. Then, if agreeable, he'll see her again soon. "So long, lady!"
Mary stands looking after him—it is strange (or not, 'cordin' to, as Mrs. Baxter would say) how often people stand looking after Pippin when he goes away—till conscience nips her sharply ”

“ Porson, speaking with much deliberation, “that is, if they can find 'em.”
“They want looking after, that's what they want,” said Dick Tipping, with a leer.
“It's all very well for you to make fun of it,” said Mrs. Tipping, raising her voice. “I like plain, straightforward dealing folk myself. I don't under-stand nothing about your secret services and Governments and all that sort of thing. Mr. Robinson, have you come back prepared to marry my daughter? Because, if you ain't, we want to know why not.”
“Of course I have,” said Flower, hotly. “It's the dearest wish of my life. ”

“ Richard's positiveness made a deeper impression on her than she liked to acknowledge. She shut her eyes a moment, squinting them up so tight that her eyelids wrinkled, and hoped as hard as she could hope that everything would turn out all right.
"What on earth is the matter with you, child?" exclaimed Tippy, looking up from her letter in time to catch Georgina with her face thus screwed into wrinkles. ”

“ The social life of Tipton really had no room for such a woman, could not employ her rare gifts, knew not what to make of her yearnings and her charity. And Tipton is the world and modern life, which spurns the heroic, has no place for the poetry of existence, can make nothing of yearnings and longings for high heroism. Because the social order into which she was born could not use her gifts, because the vision of life in her soul was other and higher than that which society had marked out for such as she, her life was wasted in an unhappy marriage. ”

“ The spinster aunt took up a large watering-pot which lay in one corner, and was about to leave the arbour. Mr. Tupman detained her, and drew her to a seat beside him.
“Miss Wardle!” said he.
The spinster aunt trembled, till some pebbles which had accidentally found their way into the large watering-pot shook like an infant’s rattle.
[113]
“Miss Wardle,” said Mr. Tupman, “you are an angel.”
“Mr. Tupman!” exclaimed Rachael, blushing as red as the watering-pot itself.
“Nay,” said the eloquent Pickwickian, “I know it but too well.”
“All women are angels, they say,” murmured the lady, playfully. ”

“ But when she opened her eyes it was Tippy who was bending over her, smoothing her curls in a comforting, purry way, but the smell of liniment still hung in the air.
Then Georgina remembered something that must have happened before she was carried home from the bungalow.—Captain Kidd squirming out of Tippy's arms, and Tippy with the tears streaming down [167] her face trying to hold him and hug him as if he had been a person, and the Milford's cook saying: "If it hadn't been for the little beast's barkin' they'd have been dead in a few minutes more. ”

“ His wife’s elder sister shook her head, and passing the remains of her slice to one of her small nephews, leaned back in her chair. “No appetite, Tidger,” she said, slowly.
“You should go in for carpentering,” said Mr. Tidger, in justification of the huge crust he was carving into mouthfuls with his pocket-knife. “Seems to me I can’t eat enough sometimes. Hullo, who’s the letter for?”
He took it from the postman, who stood at the door amid a bevy of Tidgers who had followed him up the court, and slowly read the address.
“‘Mrs. Ann Pullen,’” he said, handing it over to his sister-in-law ”

“ All heads were turned towards that more imperious shape sweeping in its cloak of gray from the quiet shadows of the orchard trees.
Queenliness in a woman is the counterpart of courage in a man, and with Tiphaïne the very carriage of her head conveyed more magnetism than the choicest smiles of a woman of meaner presence and address. She walked as though these gentlemen of the sword would fall back before her, and fall back they did, leaving her a pathway through the trampled grass. ”

“ Out of these few and natural incidents, Mr. Bladdery Pip was pronounced at length, by those (i. e. the aforesaid newspaper scribes) who govern, if they do not indeed constitute, PUBLIC OPINION, to have produced an imperishable record of his genius; avoiding all the faults, and combining all the excellences, of all his former productions. The identity between Titmouse and Tippetiwink, Lord Dreddlington and Lord Frizzleton, Lady Cecilia and Lady Sapphira, [Pg 301] and Mr. Aubrey and the "demon Mowbray," was quickly established. ”

“ These are Pippin and Mary; she in white, with white roses in her pretty hat, he—but no one could ever tell what Pippin had on.
At sight of him the chaplain looses his hold of the two boys. They make one bolt for the door, fall out of it together, wriggle up again, and rush like a double whirlwind to the gate, rolling under the wheels of the car, which has fortunately come to a standstill.
Pippin and Mary spring down. Seeing them, the cottage becomes all eyes, guests, helpers, delegates, crowding to the windows. Most of the women begin to cry. Foolish creatures! What is the matter with them? ”

“ Henry made up his mind at once, and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she could well afford. She would take no denial. ”

“ You must be patient, Pippin. A young woman's feelings are very sensitive, as you said yourself yesterday. Mary is very much upset, and she probably feels—she is a very sensible girl, and a very intelligent one"—"You bet she's all that!" Pippin murmured—"probably feels that as you are connected with all this excitement and emotion, it is better for her not to see you just now. Start along with your wheel, and Mary and I will follow by rail. Mr. Bailey can meet us at Cyrus Centre—it's a four-mile drive, you say? We'll be there as soon as you, Pippin, or before. ”

“ That was enough for Tippy. In her opinion any man in khaki is entitled to all the "sugar and spice and everything nice" the world can give. When she found that he has no home ties now, she adopted him on the spot. He didn't know he was being adopted, but I did, just from the positive tone of her voice. She told him her claim on him was about as old as Susan's. She'd known him when he was a bald-headed baby—held him in her arms in this very house, and sat under his father's preaching many a time in Wellfleet. And indeed he'd stay to supper. ”

“ Clara Rivolta, whom nature indeed had never destined to be a heroine or even to be talked about, continued to undergo with much forbearance and quietness the persecuting attentions of the fragrant Henry Augustus Tippetson, who divided his time and attentions between the Countess of Trimmerstone and the grand-daughter of old John Martindale. ”

“ Pippin ought to see, ought to realize, what Mary wanted. Ought to realize, too, what power he would have in that way, the frock coat, roast-turkey, mahogany-and-brass-rail way. Popularity? He might become the idol of a day—of many days. Men's hearts would open to him like flowers to the sun. Mass meetings; hospitals; his voice floating through the wards; "the bright seraphim in burning row!" Yes! Mary beside him, glorified in him, shining with his light and her own—Yes!—On the other hand—what? A dying tramp comforted; a weak boy saved from ruin; a poor old sinner made happy. ”

“ In return, you treat him like a dog! Instead of gratitude, you give him the cold shoulder. Shame on you, Mary Blossom! your conduct is heartless and wicked. You know Pippin loves you. You know there is no one in the world but you—"
He paused involuntarily, for Mary had risen and faced him, white as marble.
"No one but me?" she cried in a voice that shook with the cold passion of a sword. "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Hadley. Hasn't he got his family?"
"His family?" repeated the chaplain. ”

“ Now don't be absurd, Dora; the dress is perfectly proper, or Madame Tiphany never would have sent it home. It is the fashion, child; and many a girl with such a figure would go twice as decolletee, and think nothing of it, I assure you."
Debby shook her head with an energy that set the pink heather-bells a-tremble in her hair, and her color deepened beautifully as she said, with reproachful eyes,—
"Aunt Pen, I think there is a better fashion in every young girl's heart than any Madame Tiphany can teach. ”

“ To her mother’s mental discernment and strength of character was she indebted for the prevention of the first of these evils. Tippetson saw, as we have said above, that Signora Rivolta knew him, and he was therefore well aware that he could not have any hope of obtaining Clara’s hand till he had gained her affections, and had become essential to her happiness. How soon that was likely to take place is not easy to say. For greater coxcombs than he have been loved by women in other respects sensible and rational. ”

“ Mary sprang up, broad awake. Something was going on downstairs. Voices, low and angry, hasty steps—the house on fire? She was up in an instant, slipped on the blue kimono and over it a heavy cloak, ran down the back stairs just as John Aymer ran down the front. Opening opposite doors quietly, they came upon a strange sight.
In the middle of the kitchen was Pippin, at grips with another man of slighter build than himself; at one side stood a third man, older and heavier than either, watching the two. ”

“ What makes you talk in that strain? It is not fair to me.' Then he added more gravely: 'You have always told me that your friends here are real ones, Mary; and they seem to be very much attached to you. It was very pleasant to hear them talk of you in your absence.'
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'They are everything and more than I have described them to be, Philip. Mrs Tipper has been like a dear old mother to me; and Lilian—the best and truest thing I can say about Lilian is, that she is what she looks. No one could be mistaken about Lilian. ”

“ Baxter, as if he were reading the Declaration of Independence.
In they all come, Pippin and Mary leading off, the guests following in a joyous mob, the delegates bringing up the rear, smiling twice as hard as when they came. Most extraordinary occasion! Must remember all this to tell the wife. Most extraordinary people!
They have all got round the table, no one knows how. Pippin and Mary are standing, still hand in hand, all heaven in their faces. Pippin looks round, and his eyes fill with tears like all the rest. ”