This has taken some time, more especially as the train was late and the back drive hilly; yet when at length he reaches his home he finds his wife and Molly still deep in the mysteries of the toilet.
"Well?" says his sister, as he stands in the doorway regarding them silently. As she speaks she allows the dejected expression of two hours ago to return to her features, her lids droop a little over her eyes, her forehead goes up, the corners of her mouth go down. She is in one instant a very afflicted Molly. "Well?" she says.
"He isn't well at all," replies John, with a dismal shake of the head and as near an imitation of Molly's rueful countenance as he can manage at so short a notice; "he is very bad. I never saw a worse case in my life. I doubt if he will last out the day. I don't know how you regard it, but I call it cruelty to animals."
"You need not be unfeeling," says Molly, reproachfully, "and I won't listen to you making fun of him behind his back. You wouldn't before his face."
"How do you know?" As though weighing the point. "I never saw him funny until to-day. He was on the verge of tears the entire way. It was lucky I was beside him, or he would have drenched the new cushions. For shame's sake he refrained before me, but I know he is in floods by this."
"He is not," says Molly, indignantly. "Crying, indeed! What an idea! He is far too much of a man for that."
"I am a man too," says John, who seems to find a rich harvest of delight in the contemplation of Luttrell's misery. "And once, before we were married, when Letitia treated me with disdain, I gave way to my feelings to such an extent that——"
"Really, John," interposes his wife, "I wish you would keep your stupid stories to yourself, or else go away. We are very busy settling about Molly's things."
"What things? Her tea-things,—her playthings? Ah! poor little Molly! her last nice new one is gone."
"Letty, I hope you don't mind, dear," says Molly, lifting a dainty china bowl from the table near her. "Let us trust it won't break; but, whether it does or not, I must and will throw it at John."