"You look uncommonly dismal this afternoon, my dear," Mrs. Trevor remarked to Julia one autumn day.
"Do I?" Julia had been yawning covertly behind a book. "I suppose there is nothing to be cheerful about."
"Because Harvey is out? You don't expect him to give up shooting, and sit at, home all day?"
Julia merely said, "No."
"Perhaps you will like to hear that I asked him this morning if we were to spend the rest of the year in rural captivity?"
"Did you?" Julia privately thought this question ought rather to have emanated from herself. "And he said—"
"Said he didn't know, of course. Harvey would not have been Harvey if he had made any other answer."
"He was talking of Scotland the other evening-only he seemed doubtful about Hermione."
Julia regretted her own words as soon as they were spoken. Mrs. Trevor rounded her eyes with horror.
"Scotch moors! After this! Very well for Harvey of course, out shooting all day—but imagine our condition! No, no, I had set my heart on Brighton."