Miss Dower's Paragon Read Online Free

“Oh, Mr. Hawkins! Surely you are not leaving us so soon. Why, I had quite hoped to be able to offer you some small refreshment.”
    Mr. Hawkins turned the charm of his smile on the older lady. “Perhaps another time, ma’am. I shall wait on you and Miss Dower again, I assure you.”
    He bowed to Mrs. Dower and the silent young lady who was still seated immobile on the bench. Then he walked away rapidly across the chamomile lawn to disappear behind the green hedges that separated the house from the gardens.
    Mrs. Dower turned with a hopeful expression to her daughter. She asked hesitantly, “How did it go, Evelyn dearest? Am—am I to congratulate you?”
    “Pray do not be such a pea-goose, Mama. Of course I did not accept Mr. Hawkins suit,” said Evelyn, more sharply than she had intended.
    At the hurt in her mother’s eyes, she relented. “I am sorry, Mama. I am in a beastly mood and all due to that mawkworm.”
    “Mawkworm! I would never describe young Peter Hawkins in such terms. Why, he is quite the handsomest gentleman in the neighborhood,” said Mrs. Dower in liveliest surprise.
    Evelyn shrugged her shoulders in scorn of such a frivolous assessment. “I do not know how else one would describe a gentleman who allows his grandmother to approve his bride! No, Mama, I have not the least feeling or respect for Mr. Peter Hawkins, and so I let him know.”
    “Did you, my dear?” asked Mrs. Dower doubtfully. “The gentleman did not appear in the least put out of curl, as one might have expected if he had been so abused. And he did say that he would call again.”
    “Mr. Hawkins is merely all that is polite,” said Evelyn dismissively.
    “Really, Evelyn. I am not used to such pertness in you. One would think you had a score of suitors, all as good or better than Peter Hawkins.”
    “Perhaps I shall have, Mama.” Evelyn tilted up her chin in an unconsciously challenging pose. “Why not, indeed? I am considered to be passing fair and I am possessed of a respectable dowry. Why should I not attract a few eligible offers once I am out in society?” She curled her lip, casting a glance in the direction that had been taken by Mr. Hawkins. Under her breath, she muttered, “And offers that are not urged by the gentleman’s grandmothers, either.”
    “You are in a rare mood and no mistake. However, I shall not say another word on that head as I suspect that it would be of not the least use to do so! How like your father you have become, and not once did I ever suspect it!”
    Mrs. Dower sighed, but her next thought brightened her eyes at once. “Though I must say, I am happy to hear you say that you wish to be brought out. I had not thought you cared overmuch for the notion before but perhaps now it will be just the thing. Oh, I am persuaded it will be. Bath is not London, of course, but it is a fair society nonetheless.”
    Mrs. Dower sat down on the bench, already beginning to enumerate the pleasures in store for a young lady embarking upon her first Season. She was soon quite happily resigned to the disappointment of the day, especially as she tucked away into her memory the promise made by Mr. Hawkins that he would call again. Perhaps once her daughter was exposed to other gentlemen she would come to see just what a pearl Mr. Hawkins was among his peers.
    Evelyn could not quite enter into her mother’s plans for her. There was something about the interview with Mr. Hawkins that left her disquieted.
    She had hoped to convey her displeasure and contempt for his proposal through an exaggerated hauteur that was in reality foreign to her nature. Indeed, she had intended to offend him so greatly that he would be so emboldened as to refuse to comply with his grandmother’s wishes and abandon any further pursuit of her hand.
    However, she had the distinct feeling that she had missed an important nuance and that she had not come off from the meeting in quite the way she had wished. Nor, she suspected, had she