"Baby comes home to-day," she said, in a voice strained to appear cheerful.
Mrs. Delarayne looked up from a tradesman's book. "Yes," she sighed wearily. "One of Sir Joseph's cars is coming to fetch us at half-past two. The train reaches King's Cross at three. Will you come?"
"Of course,—rather!" Cleopatra exclaimed, taking down another book and examining it cursorily.
There was silence again, and Cleopatra could be heard running quickly through the pages of the volume she held.
"What is Baby going to do?" she asked after a while.
"Don't ask me!" exclaimed the mother.
"Haven't you any plans?" the daughter enquired with studied indifference, her eyes wandering vacantly over the letter-press before them.
"Plans—what plans?" ejaculated the old lady. "I suppose the poor child will have to put up with us now. You don't suppose we can send her gadding about the Continent again?"
"I didn't dream of any such thing!" Cleopatra protested a little guiltily.
"No, I promised her that she should come home for good after the School of Domesticity, and she expects it. You saw what she said in her last letter."