"If she were nice it would be so sweet to have her for a daughter. I also am very much alone, though perhaps not so much as you are, Lady Mason."
"I hope not—for I am sometimes very lonely."
"I have often thought that."
"But I should be wicked beyond everything if I were to complain, seeing that Providence has given me so much that I had no right to expect. What should I have done in my loneliness if Sir Peregrine's hand and door had never been opened to me?" And then for the next half-hour the two ladies held sweet converse together, during which we will go back to the gentlemen over their wine.
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Over their Wine. Click to [ENLARGE] |
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"Are you drinking claret?" said Sir Peregrine, arranging himself and his bottles in the way that was usual to him. He had ever been a moderate man himself, but nevertheless he had a business-like way of going to work after dinner, as though there was a good deal to be done before the drawing-room could be visited.
"No more wine for me, sir," said Lucius.
"No wine!" said Sir Peregrine the elder.
"Why, Mason, you'll never get on if that's the way with you," said Peregrine the younger.