"Or to an hotel."
"Too dear! You see you've made me pay such a sum for insuring my life. I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll let us make it out here till the 10th of July we'll go into an hotel then." Sir Thomas, surprised at his own compliance, did at last give way. "And then we can have a month at Glenbogie from the 12th."
"Three weeks," said Sir Thomas, shouting at the top of his voice.
"Very well; three weeks. If you could have made it the month it would have been convenient; but I hate to be disagreeable." Thus the matter was settled, and Mr. Traffick was altogether well pleased with the arrangement.
"What are we to do?" said Augusta, with a very long face. "What are we to do when we are made to go away?"
"I hope I shall be able to make some of the girls go down by that time, and then we must squeeze in at my father's."
This and other matters made Sir Thomas in those days irritable and disagreeable to the family. "Tom," he said to his wife, "is the biggest fool that ever lived."
"What is the matter with him now?" asked Lady Tringle, who did not like to have her only son abused.
"He's away half his time, and when he does come he'd better be away. If he wants to marry that girl why doesn't he marry her and have done with it?"
Now this was a matter upon which Lady Tringle had ideas of her own which were becoming every day stronger. "I'm sure I should be very sorry to see it," she said.