“Ah! she is always taking up with some odd person in her own away,” said Cecil. “But here we are. Will you drive on to the hotel, or get out here?”
When, at the end of two hours, the sisters-in-law met at the work-room, and Rosamond had taken a survey of the row of needle-women, coming up one by one to give their work, be paid and dismissed, there was a look of weariness and vexation on Cecil’s face. She had found it less easy to keep order and hinder gossip, and had hardly known how to answer when that kind lady, Mrs. Miles Charnock, had been asked after; but she would have scorned to allow that she had missed her assistant, and only politely asked how Rosamond had sped.
“Oh! excellently. People were so well advised as to be out, so I paid off all my calls.”
“You did not return your calls without Julius?”
“There’s nothing he hates so much. I would not have dragged him with me on any account.”
“I think it is due to one’s self.”
“Ah! but then I don’t care what is due to myself. I saw a friend of yours, Cecil.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Duncombe,” said Rosamond. “I went to Pettitt’s—the little perfumer, you know, that Julius did so much for at the fire; and there she was, leaning on the counter, haranguing him confidentially upon setting an example with sanatory measures.”
“Sanitary,” corrected Cecil; “sanitas is health, sano to cure. People never know the difference.”