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Updated: June 4, 2025
Mr Tankardew lent forward and bent a piercing look at her. She declined, not at all knowing that he was watching her. "Good again; very good, good girl, wise girl, prudent girl," he murmured to himself. The tray now came to Mrs Franklin. She took a glass of sherry. Mr Tankardew's brow clouded. "Ah!" he exclaimed, and moved restlessly on his chair.
"God bless her," muttered Mr Tankardew, when he had watched her for some time very attentively; "very good, that will do, very good indeed; keep her to it, Mrs Franklin, keep her to it." "She's a dear, good child," said her mother. "Very true, madam; yes, dear and good; some are dear and bad dear at any price. I see some now." Wine and negus were soon handed round; the tray was presented to Mary.
"Mary will do her part by trying to amuse some of the very little ones," said her mother; "I think that will be more to her taste." "Oh! Yes, dear mamma, that it will. Thank you, Mark, all the same." "Good, very good, very good," cried Mr Tankardew, in a low voice, and beating one hand gently on the other; "keep to that, my child, keep to that."
And yet Mr Tankardew was a man of education and a gentleman, and you knew it before you had been five minutes in his company. He was the owner of the house he lived in, on the outskirts of the small town of Hopeworth, and also of considerable property in the neighbourhood.
"Well, my dears, we must make the best of matters, we can't help it now." "Oh! I daresay it'll be capital fun," exclaims Alice; "I shall like to see Mark doing the polite to `Old Tanky, as he calls him." "Come, Miss Pert, you must mind your behaviour," says Florence; "remember, Mr Tankardew is a gentleman and an old man."
"I daren't speak out loud," said Mark to Mary, "for fear of raising the dust, for that'll set me sneezing, and then good-bye to one another; for the first sneeze 'll raise such a cloud that we shall never see each other till we get out of doors again." "O Mark, don't be foolish! You'll make me laugh, and we shall offend poor Mr Tankardew; but it is very odd.
Come, Mary, you must," and he thrust the glass into her hand: "you must, I say; you shall; never mind old Tanky," he added, in what he meant to be a whisper. Then he raised the jug with unsteady fingers, but, before a drop could reach the tumbler, Mr Tankardew had risen, and with one sweep of his hand dashed it out of Mary's grasp on the ground.
Another visit from Mr Tankardew: the old man had been a frequent caller, and was ever welcome. That he cherished a fatherly love for Mary was evident; indeed his heart seemed divided between herself and the young musician, Mr John Randolph, who, though he had ceased to give lessons at "The Firs," was most scrupulously punctual in his attendance at "The Shrubbery."
The signatures were made, and then Mr Tankardew, clasping his thin hands together, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, offered a short emphatic prayer that God would bless and strengthen these His servants, and enable them by His grace to be a blessing to others as pledged abstainers. And then he turned again to Mary, and said: "You have given me the one promise; will you give me the other?
"Wouldn't Mr Tankardew like to come to our juvenile party on Twelfth Night?" asked Mark with a little dash of mischief in his voice, and a demure look at Mary. Mrs Franklin bit her lips, and Mr Rothwell frowned. "A juvenile party at your house?" asked Mr Tankardew, very gravely.
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