Your loving and well-dressed
Deceiver.
P. S. It's to-morrow, for I forgot to post this, there were so many things "doing." Please forgive me. The car's splendid, and I am to christen her. We're going to have a kind of ceremony like a launching, and I have to think of a name for her, and throw wine on her bonnet. Sir Lionel is longing to get off on the tour, he says; and as he's to leave town for Warwickshire to-morrow, turning me over temporarily to the tender mercies of the good—(his sister)—I almost hope that after all Mrs. Senter mayn't have time to "sweedle" him into taking her with us, as I know she hopes to do.
We, by the way, are not to see his place until the burnt bit is mended. We're to avoid Warwickshire in starting out, go away up North as far as the Roman Wall, visit Bamborough Castle, where he thinks friends of his, who own it, will actually invite us to lunch, or something (it seems like a dream), and then stop in Warwickshire at the end of the tour, when all the dilapidations have been made good. The Dragon naturally expects me, not only to finish the trip, but to take up my residence at Graylees until next spring, when his plan is that his ward shall be presented. Oh, mice and men, and dragons, how aft your plans gang agley! Of course, mine depend altogether upon Ellaline. I hold myself ready for marching orders from her. But I must confess to you that, whether right or wrong, I don't look forward to the weeks of my duties as understudy with the same feelings I had when I was engaged to perform them.
Little did Sir Lionel guess what was in my mind this morning, when I asked if one could see most of England in a few weeks when motoring! But I may have to take my flight from the car, so to speak, unless Ellaline be detained for some reason. I'm expecting a letter from her any day now, and there may be definite news.
Good-bye, again, dearest.
VIII
AUDRIE BRENDON TO HER MOTHER
Royal Hotel, Chichester,