‘I am afraid you must be disappointed, for my brother is with his regiment at Windsor, and my sister is still so weak that she ought to have no excitement.’
‘And we have only a few hours in town. The inexorable claims of business have recalled us to Wrangerton.’
The Earl looked up surprised, as if the word had recalled him from the clouds.
‘You have been in Wales, I think,’ said Theodora. ‘Were you pleased?’
‘Oh, I was enraptured!’ exclaimed the bride; ‘the sublime and romantic could be carried no higher! It makes me quite discontented with our home scenery.
‘Your sister would not approve of that,’ said Theodora to Albert;’ she can bear no slight to Helvellyn.’
‘I forget—is there a view of Helvellyn from Wrangerton?’ said Lord St. Erme, still somewhat dreamily.
Mrs. Moss started at hearing such good English from the German master, and patronizingly said, ‘Yes. Helvellyn is monarch of our picturesque. Do you ever come northwards?’
‘Not so often as, perhaps, I ought. I am afraid I know more of the Alps than of Helvellyn.’
‘I am sure,’ continued the voluble lady, ‘if ever you thought of such a scheme when the season is over, it would be well worth your while. I could reckon up many respectable families, who with such introductions—let me see, there are the Joneses, and the Dunlops, and the Evelyns, to say nothing of my new sisters, the Miss Mosses.’