A Country Wooing by Joan Smith Page B

about your size, too.”
    “No, take anything you want,” Alex repeated rather curtly.
    “Anything?” Robin’s eyes glowed with delight.
    “Why not?”
    “By Jove, I’ll be the best-dressed pauper in the countryside. He has dozens of dandy jackets, and the waistcoats! A superb black evening outfit, too, and a sable-lined cape.”
    “There is your problem taken care of,” Anne said. “I don’t suppose he has a white crepe anything. I have been coveting a white crepe gown the past months.”
    “No, but he has half a dozen dressing gowns, all silk with fringed belts, and one with a bird of paradise on the back.”
    “Just a trifle gaudy for my taste,” she said consideringly.
    Mrs. Wickfield came in, bearing the tea tray, and the conversation came down to earth. She shook her head to hear of conditions at Sawburne and repeated that it was the merchants who were at fault. “The Anglins ...” she said, preparing her tirade.
    “Watch your words, Mama,” Anne cautioned. “Robin is considering offering for the younger—or is it the elder, Robin? You might as well go for a million.”
    “I wouldn’t be too civil to them, Robin,” Mrs. Wickfield warned. “People like that—why, they might take it seriously.”
    “The girls are actually well-behaved,” Robin objected. “Maggie and Marilla went to a ladies’ seminary and might pass for ladies anywhere.”
    “Ah, but ladies in a new bonnet every season—parvenus,” Anne chided. “Would they have the fortitude to be ladies in three-year-old silks?”
    “Indeed they would not!” Mrs. Wickfield said sharply.
    “I had tea with Mrs. Anglin at a church do, and she dunked her biscuit.”
    “Maggie don’t dunk her biscuits,” Robin defended.
    “Robin, I hope you’re not setting up a flirtation with Maggie Anglin,” Anne exclaimed. “If it’s only a fortune to bring Sawburne around that worries you, marry me. I have five thousand. That should do it, should it not, Alex?” Though the offer was not serious, she was displeased to hear Robin speak so hotly about Miss Maggie.
    “More than do it,” Alex agreed.
    “Well, there you are, then,” Anne said. “It isn’t necessary to marry new money. Take me, and you’ll get old, well-bred money. Tell him, Alex. You like giving orders.”
    “Not that order,” he said, and slanted a smile at her. “Fine as well-bred money is, I cannot think five thousand old is finer than a million new.”
    “No, no, the elder daughter is going for a million. He cannot expect a sou over five hundred thousand for Maggie.”
    “Twenty-five thousand is what you would get. Something in that order,” Mrs. Wickfield said.
    “I ain’t planning to marry her,” Robin said, becoming angry. “But it’s an idea, now that you mention it. He’d come down heavy for a title for her—sort of a title. Lady Robin. Of course, he’d come down a deal heavier to make her Lady Penholme.”
    Anne turned a sapient eye on Alex. “I trust you know your duty, Penholme.”
    “I begin to think it would take Anglin’s fortune to keep me afloat. I notice you don’t offer me your well-aged dowry, Annie.”
    “A paltry five thousand! It would be but a drop in the bucket to a man of your debts.”
    Mrs. Wickfield disliked to hear Alex’s debts and Anglin’s fortune discussed in the same conversation. She cleared her throat and said, “You could always sell the London mansion, Alex.”
    “Not if I can help it. It took my family six generations to build up their assets. I don’t plan to preside at their disbursement.’’
    “There’s the Leicester hunting box—that is hardly ever used.”
    “It’s gone,” he said curtly.
    “Gone where?” she asked, startled.
    “Charles sold it before I left.”
    “Sold the Leicester place! I never heard about that.” She exchanged a shocked, angry glance with her daughter.
    “He needed the money,” Alex said.
    “What for?”
    “To pay some debts.”
    “Deuce take it, I don’t see that we