‘A wreath would hide all deficiencies,’ said Florence; ‘I am determined to have you both.’
‘I give small hopes of both,’ said Claude; ‘you will only have Emily.’
‘Why do you think so, Claude?’ cried both Florence and Lilias.
‘From my own observation,’ Claude answered, gravely.
‘I am very angry with the Baron,’ said Lord Rotherwood; ‘he is grown inhospitable: he will not let me come here to-morrow—the first Christmas these five years that I have missed paying my respects to the New Court sirloin and turkey. It is too bad—and the Westons dining here too.’
‘Cousin Turkey-cock, well may you be in a passion,’ muttered Claude, as if in soliloquy.
Lord Rotherwood and Lilias both caught the sound, and laughed, but Emily, unwilling that Florence should see what liberties they took with her brother, asked quickly why he was not to come.
‘I think we are much obliged to him,’ said Florence, ‘it would be too bad to leave mamma and me to spend our Christmas alone, when we came to the castle on purpose to oblige him.’
‘Ay, and he says he will not let me come here, because I ought to give the Hetherington people ocular demonstration that I go to church,’ said Lord Rotherwood.
‘Very right, as Eleanor would say,’ observed Claude.