CHAPTER XVI. A GIRL AND A BIT OF LOWESTOFT
Immediately after breakfast the next morning, Billy was summoned to the telephone.
“Oh, good morning, Uncle William,” she called, in answer to the masculine voice that replied to her “Hullo.”
“Billy, are you very busy this morning?”
“No, indeed—not if you want me.”
“Well, I do, my dear.” Uncle William's voice was troubled. “I want you to go with me, if you can, to see a Mrs. Greggory. She's got a teapot I want. It's a genuine Lowestoft, Harlow says. Will you go?”
“Of course I will! What time?”
“Eleven if you can, at Park Street. She's at the West End. I don't dare to put it off for fear I'll lose it. Harlow says others will have to know of it, of course. You see, she's just made up her mind to sell it, and asked him to find a customer. I wouldn't trouble you, but he says they're peculiar—the daughter, especially—and may need some careful handling. That's why I wanted you—though I wanted you to see the tea-pot, too,—it'll be yours some day, you know.”
Billy, all alone at her end of the line, blushed. That she was one day to be mistress of the Strata and all it contained was still anything but “common” to her.