"INDEED!"
GLADYS HEPBURN'S JOURNAL.
August 12. Wednesday.
SCARCELY more than a fortnight since the Romillys went away: and I am sure it seems an age.
Poor Mrs. Romilly has been so dreadfully ill. Nobody seems exactly to understand how she was hurt, except about the collar-bone, which doesn't explain her being so very ill. Mother believes that it was "a bad jar to her nervous system;" and I shouldn't wonder, for she and her little husband in their different ways seem to be made up of nothing but nerves,—as if all the bones and muscles had been left out. The wonder is that all the girls are not mere packets of nerves too! But I don't think they are,—except Elfie!
Mr. Romilly is out there still with Eustace, and there isn't the least talk of their coming back to England. Mrs. Romilly is better and out of danger. But now that Mr. Romilly has actually reached Cologne, he is settling down quite comfortably. Uncle Tom declares he "won't budge" for six months at least. And Ramsay says—"Sixteen."
Miss Con is at Beckdale, in charge of all those girls. Mother and I do pity her. She has written once to me,—a kind cheerful letter, all about the scenery of Yorkshire.
Proofs of my book are coming in fast. Correcting them is most delightful. A story looks so much nicer in proof than in MS. I wonder why.
August 14. Friday.—Mother and I went to afternoon tea at The Park to-day, to meet a few people. There was somebody whom I have never seen before, though I have heard of him,—a Captain Lenox. The Denhams met him lately at Bath, and asked him here for two or three nights.
He looks younger than Sir Keith, and he is very upright and slight and soldierly. I do like soldierly men. He reminds me just a little of the picture of my Father when he was young, the one hanging over Mother's bedroom mantelpiece. I don't generally admire fair men, and Captain Lenox is rather fair, but it isn't a hay-coloured wishy-washy fairness. He has deep-blue eyes, and light-brown hair, and a tanned complexion. And he looks as if he had an immense amount of character and firmness.