"Good heavens!" she mentally exclaimed. "I do hope and trust that boy has not been thoughtless!"
She remembered how she had found him in the tea-room, and his proneness to amatory dalliance of a fleeting kind, inevitable in the case of a man so handsome, and so much sought after by flirting women; and she had a moment of grave uneasiness. Then she reflected upon Jenny's soberness of nature and Tony's opportune departure with Lady Louisa, and was at ease again.
Tea was served at five, and the children came down to be played with. Then Mr. Churchill and Mr. Oxenham returned from their club to dinner, and the latter was introduced to Jenny, and both did their part to put her at ease and make her feel at home and happy. The old gentleman took her in to dinner on his arm, and was concerned that she did not eat as she should, and told her she wanted a change to the seaside, racking his brains to think how he could manage to cozen her into accepting some assistance that would make such a thing practicable. Soon after dinner was over the hansom Mrs. Oxenham had ordered was announced, and the good old fellow, bustling in from his wine, declared his intention of seeing Miss Liddon home in person. He blamed Mary for sending her away so soon, but Mary said it was better for her to go to bed early; and then Mr. Churchill said he hoped Miss Liddon would soon come again—forgetting that his daughter was on the point of leaving him, and that his young wife would be little likely to endorse such an invitation.
Jenny left in a glow of inward happiness, and of gratitude that she could not express, though she tried to do so. Mrs. Oxenham wrapped her in a Chuddah shawl, and kissed her on the doorstep.
"Good-night, dear child," she said, quite tenderly. "Go straight to bed and to sleep, and don't go to the tea-room to-morrow. I shall come and see you early."
Having watched her charge depart in her father's care, this kind woman returned to her husband, whom she found alone in the dining-room, smoking, and reading the evening paper, with his coffee beside him.
"Harry, dear," she said, "I want to ask you something."
"Ask away," he returned affably.
"Would you have any objection to my having that girl to stay with me for Christmas—that is, if she will come?"
He laid down his paper and thought about it. Though he was a Manchester cotton man, he was no snob, or he would not have been Mary Churchill's husband; but this was, as he would have termed it, a large order.