Mrs. Lancing's friends seemed to employ an army of telegraph boys, and she herself would dash home in cabs every now and then in a violent hurry apparently. Though she might neglect or postpone other duties, she never forgot a flying visit to the nursery at bath-time.
The clamour of the children, however, and the nonsense and the kisses, precluded anything further than the interchange of smiles and a few words between Mrs. Lancing and her new governess.
It was Dennis who reported that Miss Graniger had settled down to her work admirably; that she was a decided acquisition.
"You've never had any one near so nice, ma'am," was Dennis's opinion, given emphatically. "She doesn't give herself airs, and isn't above doing all sorts of little things that nurse would never have dreamed of doing; and the way she understands children—well, there, it gets over me! Miss Betty was in one of her tantrums this morning, but Miss Graniger, she soon set things right. I'd 'ope, ma'am," Dennis added, "that there'll be no change this time...."
"I never want to change, you know that," Camilla's answer was to this.
She found time to scribble a few words, conveying what Dennis had told her, to Agnes Brenton, and added—
"As the great Mogul has never taken any notice of us since you left town, we are left conjecturing whether he is indifferent or annoyed."
Just when she was closing this letter Camilla took out the paper again and wrote a postscript.
"Violet Lancing scratched to some purpose the other day! I have had a letter from the old man commanding me to take the children to spend Christmas with him. I have not answered him, but I mean to tell him to go to ..."—she made a great dash—"church on Christmas morning," she finished. "As I am promised to you, I cannot go to the Lancings, can I?" she wrote underneath.
Caroline was far too busy in these the first days of new occupation to give much heed to the fact that Rupert Haverford had sent no answer to the letter she had written to him.