CHAPTER VII—IN THE FOURTH WATCH
LADY LEYLAND had ordered breakfast at ten o’clock and at that hour her guests were ready for it. Mistress Temple and Katherine showed no signs of weariness, but Lord Ley-land looked bored and Mistress Annis was silent concerning the squire and his manner of passing the night. Then Leyland said:
“By George! Madam, you are very right to be anxious. The company of ladies always makes me anxious. I will go to my club and read the papers. I feel that delay is no longer possible.”
“Your breakfast, Fred,” cried Katherine, but Fred was as one that heard not, and with a smile and a good-by which included all present, Leyland disappeared, and as his wife smilingly endorsed his
“Love puts out all other cares.”
and anxious but soon voiced her trouble in a wish forget everything else but now if I can be excused apologies, no one made the slightest attempt to detain him. Certainly Mistress Annis looked curiously at her daughter and, when the door was closed, said:
“I wonder at you, Jane—Leyland had not drank his first cup of coffee and as to his breakfast it is still on his plate. It is not good for a man to go to politics fasting.”
“O mother! you need not worry about Fred’s breakfast. He will order one exactly to his mind as soon as he reaches his club and he will be ten times happier with the newspapers than with us.”