“Never! Oh, thank you! I should like it so much! I never saw any exhibition at all, except once the Gigantic Cabbage!—May I go, Aunt Barbara?”
“Really you are very kind, after—”
“Oh, we never think of afters on birthdays!—Do we, Addie?”
“If you are so very good, perhaps Mrs. Lacy will kindly bring her to meet you.”
“I am sure,” said he, turning courteously to that lady, “that we should be very sorry to give Mrs. Lacy so much trouble. If this is to be a holiday to everyone, I am sure you would prefer the quiet day.”
No one could look at the sad face and widow’s cap without feeling that so it must be, even without the embarrassed “Thank you, my Lord, if—”
“If—if Katharine were more to be trusted,” began Lady Barbara.
“Now, Barbara,” he said in a drolly serious fashion, “if you think the Court of Chancery would seriously object, say so at once.”
Lady Barbara could not keep the corners of her mouth quite stiff, but she still said, “You do not know what you are undertaking.”
“Do you deliberately tell me that you think myself and Fanny, to say nothing of young Fanny, who is the wisest of us all, unfit to be trusted with this one young lady?” said he, looking her full in the face, and putting on a most comical air: “It is humiliating, I own.”