“Yes, and telegraph to me afterward. Dad, if you upset all our beautiful arrangements, neither she nor I will ever speak to you again. Oh! do be good.”
“But it won’t be like home not to have Lady O. here,” said he.
“She knows that; but Claude and I have to make as good an imitation as we can. And you’ll put me in a dreadful hole if you go back to town. She will say I have made no hand of looking after you at all. I shall be in disgrace, as well as you.”
“Well, God bless you, my dear!” said he, “and thank you for being so good to us. Here I’ll stop, if it’s the missus’s wish. No, I don’t fancy any pudding to-day, thank you.”
Dora laid down her spoon and fork.
“Dad, not one morsel do I eat unless you have some!” she said. “And I’m dreadfully hungry.”
Lord Osborne laughed within himself.
“Eh! you’ve got a managing wife, Claude,” he said. “She twists us all round her little finger.”
The expected telegram arrived in the course of the evening, and though it contained nothing definite, Lord Osborne was able to interpret it in the most optimistic manner.
“Well, Sir Henry tells you that Mrs. O.’s in no pain, and that he’s going to see her again to-morrow,” he said. “Why, I call that good news, and it relieves my mind, my dear. Bless her! she’ll get a good night’s rest, I hope now, and feel a different creature in the morning. There’s nothing else occurs to you, my dear? Surely he would have said if he had found anything really wrong?”