"Some people think mother so charming," continued Frank. "I never yet found out what her particular charm is."
On this occasion, when Edith mentioned that Dodo was coming to stay with her, Lady Grantham sounded truce at once, and left her unnatural offspring alone.
"I wish you'd ask me to come and stay with you, too," said she presently. "Bob and Frank will be going off partridge shooting all day, and Nora and I will be all alone, and they'll be sleepy in the evening, and snore in the drawing-room."
"I'd make her promise to be polite, Miss Staines," remarked Frank.
"I want to meet Lady Chesterford very much," she continued. "I hear she is so charming. She's a friend of yours; isn't she, Nora? Why have you never asked her to stay here? What's the good of having friends if you don't trot them out?"
"Oh, I've asked her more than once, mother," said Miss Grantham, "but she couldn't ever come."
"She's heard about ma at home," said Frank.
"I'm backing you, Frank," remarked the Baronet, who was still rather sore after his recent drubbing. "Go in and win, my boy."
"Bob, you shouldn't encourage Frank to be rude," said Lady Grantham. "He's bad enough without that."
"That's what comes of having a mamma with foreign manners. There's no word for 'thank you' in Spanish, is there, mother? Were you here with Charlie Broxton, Miss Staines? She told him he didn't brush his hair, or his teeth, and she hated little men. Charlie's five feet three. He was here as my friend."