“To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.
“Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps—whatever, indeed, you thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was away—”
“That you was going to give a ball?”
“No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two friends of my brother's—”
“And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”
“Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off, sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”
“I will not,—the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it when the 'Jidge' is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names that 's calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin' here?”
“Dear Nicholas, there's no question of feasting. It is simply a cup of tea we mean to give; sorely there's no carousing in that. And as to grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr. Beattie has hopes now.”
“I have n't, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”
“What a pity they have n't sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom, ironically.