‘You see,’ said Caroline, when she had told the others of the Mineral woman’s happiness, ‘the magic always works.’
CHAPTER XVII
THE LE-O-PARD
‘We simply must write to Aunt Emmeline,’ said Caroline earnestly. ‘I’ve got three new pens and some scented violet ink. I got it at the shop yesterday; it’s lovely. And I’ve been counting up the picture post-cards she and Uncle Percival have sent us. There are forty-two, and twenty-eight of those have come since we wrote last.’
‘I’d almost rather not have the post-cards; they make you feel so horrid when you don’t write,’ said Charles. ‘Suppose we send picture post-cards. You don’t have to write nearly so much.’
I think that would be shirking,’ said Charlotte, who did not want to go out, and more than half believed what she said. ‘Come on. If we must, we must. Necessity doesn’t know the law.’
‘You write, too, Rupert,’ said Charles kindly. ‘Put some Latin in. They’ll love that. Or perhaps you’d tell me some to say. I can put it in if you say how I ought to spell it.’
But Rupert said he couldn’t be bothered, and took down a book—Jesse’s Anecdotes of Dogs it was, with alluring pictures and delightful stories; but he did not really read it.
Caroline, looking up in an agony of ignorance as to the way you spelt assafœtida, which the medicine book said was good for ‘pains in the head brought about by much ſtudy of the printed book,’ saw that Rupert’s eyes were fixed in a dismal stare on the portrait above the mantelpiece, the portrait of Dame Eleanour.