"'Green fields and pastures new,'" quotes Mr. Massereene. "He will have them in abundance. He ought to be happy, as they say there is a charm in variety."
"Perhaps he will find some amusement in me," suggests Molly, modestly. "Can it be possible that he is really coming? Oh, the glory of having a young man to talk to, and that young man a soldier! Letitia," to her sister-in-law, "I warn you it will be no use for you to look shocked, because I have finally made up my mind to flirt every day, and all day long, with Tedcastle George Luttrell."
"Shocked!" says Letitia, gravely. "I would be a great deal more shocked if you had said you wouldn't; for what I should do with him, if you refused to take him in hand, is a thing on which I shudder to speculate. John is forever doing questionable things, and repenting when it is too late. Unless he means to build a new wing—" with a mild attempt at sarcasm,—"I don't know where Mr. Luttrell is to sleep."
"I fear I would not have time," says Massereene, meekly; "the walls would scarcely be dry, as he is coming—the day after to-morrow."
"Not until then?" says Letitia, ominously calm. "Why did you not make it to-day? That would have utterly precluded the possibility of my getting things into any sort of order."
"Letitia, if you continue to address me in your present heartless style for one minute longer, I shall burst into tears," says Mr. Massereene. And then they all laugh.
"He shall have my room," says Molly, presently, seeing that perplexity still adorns Letitia's brows, "and I can have Lovat's."
"Oh, Molly, I will not have you turned out of your room for any one," says Letitia; but she says it faintly, and is conscious of a feeling of relief at her heart as she speaks.
"But indeed he shall. It is such a pretty room that he cannot fail to be impressed. Any one coming from a hot city, and proving insensible to the charms of the roses that are now creeping into my window, would be unfit to live. Even a hussar must have a soft spot somewhere. I foresee those roses will be the means of reducing him to a lamb-like meekness."
"You are too good, Molly. It seems a shame," says Letitia, patting her sister-in-law's hand, and still hesitating, through a sense of duty; "does it not, John?"