Deb shook her head.
"European, then? Some prince or count, as big as Francie's, or bigger?"
Deb wrinkled a disdainful nose.
"It is no use, Moll; you would not come near it in fifty tries. I'll tell you—Claud Dalzell."
"What—the deadly enemy!" This time Mrs Goldsworthy did laugh. Deb joined in.
"Funny, isn't it? I feel"—sarcastically—"like going into fits myself when I think of it, it is so screamingly absurd. And how it happened I can't tell you, unless it is that we are fallen into our dotage. I suppose it must be that."
"You in your dotage!" Mary mocked, with an affectionate sincerity that was grateful to her sister's ear. "You are the youngest of us all, and always will be. Do you ever look at yourself in the glass? Upright as a dart, and your pretty wavy hair—so thick, and scarcely a grey thread in it! Of course, I don't know how it may be with him; I have not seen him for such ages—"
"Oh, he is a perfect badger for greyness—not that I ever saw a badger, by the way. And he walks with a stick, and has dreadful chronic things the matter with him, from eating and drinking too much all his life, and never taking enough exercise. Quite the old man, I should have called him a few months ago. But he is better now."
Mrs Goldsworthy gave a little shudder, and her unsympathetic gravity returned.
"I see," she sighed. "Your benevolent heart has run away with you, as usual. His infirmities appealed to your pity. You married him so that you might nurse and take care of him—"