Staines made her promise to write to him; and she did write him a sweet, womanly letter, to say that they were making an enormous fortune, and hoped to end their days in England. Dick sent his kind love and thanks.
I will add, what she only said by implication, that she was happy after all. She still contrived to love the thing she could not respect. Once, when an officious friend pitied her for her husband's lameness, she said, “Find me a face like his. The lamer the better; he can't run after the girls, like SOME.”
Dr. Staines called on Lady Cicely Treherne; the footman stared. He left his card.
A week afterwards, she called on him. She had a pink tinge in her cheeks, a general animation, and her face full of brightness and archness.
“Bless me!” said he bluntly, “is this you? How you are improved!”
“Yes,” said she; “and I am come to thank you for your pwescwiption: I followed it to the lettaa.”
“Woe is me! I have forgotten it.”
“You diwected me to mawwy a nice man.”
“Never: I hate a nice man.”
“No, no—an Iwishman: and I have done it.”