Laid up in Lavender

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: http://books.google.com/books?id=EII1AAAAMAAJ
The Author desires to record his gratitude to the late Mr. James Payn and to Mr. Comyns Carr, under whose fostering care these stories came into existence; and to Messrs. Macmillan and Co., and to Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co., whose enterprise found for them a first opening in life.
July , 1907.
Horry! I am sick to death of it!
There was a servant in the room collecting the tea-cups; but Lady Betty Stafford, having been reared in the purple, was not to be deterred from speaking her mind by a servant. Her cousin was either more prudent or less vivacious. He did not answer on the instant, but stood gazing through one of the windows at the leafless trees and slow-dropping rain in the Mall. He only turned when Lady Betty pettishly repeated her statement.
Had a bad time? he vouchsafed, dropping into a chair near her, and looking first at her, in a good-natured way, and then at his boots, which he seemed to approve.
Horrid! she replied.
Many people here?
Hordes of them! Whole tribes! she exclaimed. She was a little woman, plump and pretty, with a pale, clear complexion, and bright eyes. I am bored beyond belief. And--and I have not seen Stafford since morning, she added.
Cabinet council?
Yes! she answered viciously. A cabinet council, and a privy council, and a board of trade, and a board of green cloth, and all the other boards! Horry, I am sick to death of it! What is the use of it all?
Don't do it, he said oracularly, still admiring his boots. Country go to the dogs!