‘You always were a dangerous element there, you know.’
‘Poor dear Eleanor! What did I not make her go through! But she never went the length of one of my lady’s governesses, who declared that she had as much call to interfere in my stable, as I had with her schoolroom.’
‘What mischief were you doing there?’
‘Well, if you must know, I was enlivening a very dry and Cromwellian abridgement with some of Lily’s old cavalier anecdotes, so Lily was at the bottom of it, you see.’
‘But did she fall on you then and there?’
‘No, no. I trust my beard is too grey for that. But she looked at me with impressive dignity such as neither poor little Fly nor I could stand, and afterwards betook herself to Victoria, who, I am happy to say, sent her to the right about.’
‘As I am about to do,’ said Lady Merrifield; ‘for if you don’t miss your train, it will be by cruelty to animals. No, you’ve not got time to shake hands with all that rabble. Be off with you.’
‘Ah! I shall tell Victoria that if she sees me tomorrow it’s all owing to your unpitying punctuality,’ said he, shaking himself into his overcoat.
‘Dear old fellow!’ said Lady Merrifield, as she turned from the front door, while he drove off. ‘He is like a gust of old Beechcroft air! But I should think Victoria had a handful.’
‘She knew what she was doing,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘I always thought she married him for the sake of breaking him in.’