"Did Beatrice tell you to ask him? I mean did she suggest it to you?"
"Yes, dear—to tell the truth. I should not have asked him, simply because I knew he didn't like the bush. It did not occur to me that he would be fretting after you—Mr. Kingston fretting after anybody is such a very novel idea! Oh, my dear Rachel"—and here she drew the girl close and kissed her—"you are luckier than ever I thought you were!"
"Yes," sighed Rachel; "I know I am very lucky."
"And Beatrice says," continued Mrs. Thornley, with her arm round her cousin's waist, "that we shall be having everything settled soon, and that you are to have a delightful tour in Europe. How you will enjoy that! It was the one thing I wished for when I was married that I did not get. Not but what," the gentle woman added quickly, "I am very glad I did not get it now. I could not have been happier than I have been at Adelonga, and it must be very inconvenient to have a baby when one is travelling about. You must tell me, darling, what you would like for a present. John and I were talking about it last night—John thinks a great deal of you, you must know, which is a thing you ought to be proud of, for he is very particular and critical about girls—and he says he would like to give you something worth having. But I told him you and I would talk it over before we decided what it should be."
"How good you are! How good everybody is!" exclaimed Rachel, folding the girlish matron in a rather hysterical embrace. "But I don't think I shall be married just yet, Lucilla—wait till we hear what Mr. Kingston says."
"Oh, we know already what he is going to say."
"There is the party to be thought of first," proceeded Rachel, determined, now that Mr. Kingston was coming, not to dissipate in fruitless skirmishes the strength that she would require to fight the inevitable battle with him. "You have only a week before you, and you have not sent out your invitations, have you?"
"Yes, I have. I did that the day you were at the races, and have had answers to some of them. We shall get about thirty or forty people together, I hope—perhaps more. I wonder, by the way, whether Mr. Dalrymple could bring that friend of his, Mr. Jim Gordon—I wish I had thought to ask him. We have too large a proportion of married people, unfortunately." Lucilla had become thoughtful and business-like. "Seven bachelors altogether," she remarked musingly, after a pause; "that is not nearly enough. Does Mr. Kingston dance now, Rachel?"
"Yes, but not a great deal—mostly quadrilles. I think," she added, reflectively, "he is rather troubled with gout in one of his knees."
"Poor fellow! He waltzed with me I remember when I first came out, and that's not very long ago. Surely he can't have gout—a man who walks with such a peculiarly light and airy tread! Though, to be sure, I knew a man of twenty-five—or was it thirty-five?—who had gout badly."