"With your kind permission, then, I shall remain a few days at Pulwick, to recruit from the fatigues of such a long Journey, before leaving your fair cousins in your charge, and in that of the gentle Sophia (whom I trust to entertain them with something besides her usual melancholy), till the time comes for me to bring them back with me to Bunratty.
"Unless, therefore, you should hear to the contrary, you will know that on Tuesday your three unprotected female relatives will be hoping to see your travelling carriage arrive to fetch them at the Crown in Lancaster.
"Your Affectionate Aunt,
"Rose O'Donoghue."
As Miss Landale sighed forth the concluding words, she dropped the little folio on her lap, and looked at her brother with a world of apprehension in her faded eyes.
"Oh, Rupert, what shall we do?"
"Do," said Mr. Landale, quickly turning on her, out of his absorption, "you will kindly see that suitable rooms are prepared for your aunt and cousins, and you will endeavour, if you please, to show these ladies a cheerful countenance, as your aunt requests."
"The oak and the chintz rooms, I suppose," Sophia timidly suggested. "Tanty used to say she liked the aspect, and I daresay the young ladies will find it pleasant to look out on the garden."
"Ay," returned Rupert, absently. He had risen from his seat, and fallen to pacing the room. Presently a short laugh broke from him. "Tolerably cool, I must say," he remarked, "tolerably cool. It seems to be a tradition with that Savenaye family, when in difficulties, to go to Pulwick."
Miss Landale looked up with relief. Perhaps Rupert would think better of it, and make up his mind to elude receiving the unwelcome visitors after all. But his next speech dashed her budding hopes.
"Ay, as in the days of their mother before them, when she came here to lay her eggs, like a cuckoo in another bird's nest—I wish they had been addled, I do indeed—we may expect to have the whole place turned topsy-turvy, I suppose. It is a pretty assortment, faith (as Tanty says herself); an old papist, and two young ones, fresh from a convent school—and of these, one a hoyden, and the other lovesick! Faugh! Sophia you will have to keep your eyes open when the old lady is gone. I'll have no unseemly pranks in this house."