"I am sorry, Aunt Sarah. But I didn't know, of course, that you were coming and bringing visitors."
"To be sure you did not, child," said Mrs. Harry with a good-natured smile. She was a cheerful, commonsensical person, pleasant of face rather than pretty, by no means wanting in wit, and radiant of happiness, just now, as a young woman should be who has married the man of her heart. "But let me present you—to Lady Caroline Vyell and Miss Diana."
Dicky bowed again. "I am sorry, ma'am," he repeated, addressing Lady Caroline. "Mr. Hanmer has put out his pipe, you see, and the window is open."
Lady Caroline carried an eyeglass with a long handle of tortoise-shell. Through it she treated Dicky to a deliberate and disconcerting scrutiny, and lowered it to turn and ask Mrs. Harry,—
"You permit him to call you 'Aunt Sarah'?"
Mrs. Harry laughed. "It sounds better, you will admit, than
'Aunt Sally,' and don't necessitate my carrying a pipe in my mouth.
Oh yes," she added, with a glance at the boy's flushed face, "Dicky and
I are great friends. In any one's presence but Mr. Hanmer's I would say
'the best of friends.'"
Lady Caroline turned her eyeglass upon Mr. Hanmer. "Is this—er— gentleman his tutor?" she asked.
The question, and the sight of the lieutenant's mental distress, set Mrs. Harry laughing again. "In seamanship only. Mr. Hanmer is my husband's second-in-command and one of the best officers in the Navy."
"I consider smoking a filthy habit," said Lady Caroline.
"Yes, ma'am," murmured Mr. Hanmer.