“So I'd have thought, too, but that she made George attend her with the ice and the eau-de-cologne, and thus maintained a little ambulant flirtation with him, that, sick as I was, almost drove me mad.”
“She means nothing, I am certain, by all these levities, or, rather, she does not care what they mean; but here come our brothers, and I am eager for news, if they have any.”
“Where's George?” asked Julia, as Augustus entered alone.
“Sir Marcus something caught him at the gate, and asked to have five minutes with him.”
“That means putting off dinner for an hour at least,” said she, half pettishly. “I must go and warn the cook.”
CHAPTER XLVII. A PROPOSAL IN FORM.
When Sir Marcus Cluff was introduced into L'Estrange's study, his first care was to divest himself of his various “wraps,” a process not very unlike that of the Hamlet gravedigger. At length, he arrived at a suit of entire chamois-leather, in which he stood forth like an enormous frog, and sorely pushed the parson's gravity in consequence.
“This is what Hazeldean calls the 'chest-sufferer's true cuticle,' Nothing like leather, my dear sir, in pulmonic affections. If I 'd have known it earlier in life, I 'd have saved half of my left lung, which is now hopelessly hepatized.”
L'Estrange looked compassionate, though not very well knowing what it was he had pity for.