'O you old darling duck of an Ethel! I should as soon have thought of asking the gate-post. But if you would! Oh! wouldn't I take good care of Papa.'
'Yes, I think you would, Daisy, and it is my last chance, you see. I believe I shall do as well for George to lionize.'
'And be a dozen times better for Flora—and write such letters!'
'So here goes.'
'Now, Lancelot, if you don't delight in that Ethel of mine beyond every other creature—I suppose, for human nature's sake, I must let Cherry come first, but if I thought you would snub her like Charles, or patronise her like George, or even be hail fellow well met with her like Hector, I'd never let you into the family! Now—' as signs of clearing the dinner became evident—'I'll get my hat: there's no place to sit in in the house.'
Ethel's proposition was received with rapture.
George and Flora had just been informed by the Doctor how the case stood. They had been far too much absorbed in their own sorrows to mark the course of Daisy's feelings, but Flora had seen enough at luncheon to be prepared for the disclosure. Nobody could like his position, and she did not pretend to do so; but she saw it was of no use to expostulate, and abstained from letting her husband perceive, as she did, how entirely that of a tradesman it was.
'I am sorry it was not Rupert Cheviot,' was all she said, 'and very sorry not to take Daisy with us; but it is no use to coerce her, even if one could. She would be no good now.'
So Ethel was the more warmly accepted. Even the Doctor was happier that Flora should have her sister with her, and liked the notion of a tête-à-tête with his Daisy ere she was transplanted; and as to Flora, her gratitude on her own and her husband's account knew no bounds.
'Dear, dear old Ethel!' she said; 'such a life-long sister as you, bearing with one, and forgiving one through all, is as sweet and precious a relationship as almost any the world has to give!'