Thus she appealed to her fellow-matrons, looking round upon them for support with a festive eye.
"You'll none of you be well long, if you don't mind yourselves!" answered, with equal spirit, the Doctor, with a quiet eye on his daughter and her attendant swains.
"Why then I have a sore throat this minute with scolding Mr. Coppinger for the nonsense he's talking!" declared Mrs. Whelply. "Asking me to sing a cawmic at the concert he says he's going to have! There's no fear but whatever I sing will be cawmic enough!"
"I'm sure I'll have great pleasure in cauterising you!" responded the Doctor, gallantly; "but if you'll take my advice now, you won't want so much of it later on!"
"I thought you were going to take me on the river," said Tishy in a low voice to Larry, looking resentfully at her father.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Larry, quickly; "much better than the river—we'll go back to the house and dance! I'll fix it up with your father!"
"Good egg!" said Sub-Lieut. Talbot-Lowry, with seaman-like decision, "Miss Mangan will kindly note all waltzes are reserved for use of naval officers!"
"Miss Mangan will kindly do no such thing!" returned that young lady, dealing a flash from between her curled eyelashes that put the naval officer temporarily out of action, so devastating was its effect.
Had not Frederica Coppinger, resting in her club in Dublin, after a severe afternoon with her dentist, some intuition, some spirit-warning, of what was befalling at the home of her ancestors? I believe that those spear-thrusts of nerve-pain that assailed her just before dinner, must have been the result of the wireless summons of distress sent forth to her by her upper-housemaid.
"What next, I wonder, will Master Larry be asking for?" said the upper housemaid to the cook. "The drawing-room carpet pitched into the study, and Miss Coppinger's own room turned upside down for the riff-raff of Cluhir to be powdering their noses in! 'Haven't she no powder?' says they. 'No matter,' says the Doctor's daughter, 'sure I have a book of it in me little bag!'"