‘Then I hope he will be stirred up to do something. That’s what he wants.’
‘I am sure he is always very busy,’ said Violet, displeased.
‘Ay? Cutting open a book was rather arduous. If he was not at his best he left it to Brown.’
‘No! no! I meant going over parchments; writing for Lord Martindale;’ she did not know if she might mention the West Indian scheme.
‘Ho! there’s something in that. Well, if he comes to life after all, there’s no one so capable. Not that I am blaming him. Illness and disappointment broke him down, and—such a fellow seldom breathed. If I had not had him at Cambridge it might have been a different story with me. So you need not look like his indignant champion.’
‘I don’t know what Arthur and I should have done without him,’ said Violet.
‘Where’s the aunt? I don’t see her.’
‘She never comes down to dinner, she is only seen in the evening.’
There was a sound in reply so expressive of relief that Violet caught herself nearly laughing, but he said, gravely, ‘Poor woman, then she is growing aged.’
‘We thought her much altered this year.’