"Never mind, Vi," said Ann consolingly; "we will tell him about the purse at breakfast to-morrow, if we do not see him to-night."
"But someone may take a fancy to it and buy it before them," returned Violet, her bright face clouding over. Upon reflection, however, she came to the conclusion that that was very unlikely to be the case.
Neither of the girls had much appetite for dinner; they were too excited to eat, and Mrs. Reed being in the same condition, they did not linger over the meal. In the drawing-room afterwards the conversation was almost entirely about the tortoise-shell purse, and all three continually watched the clock and kept remarking that surely Dr. Reed would be at home soon. But it was ten o'clock before he, at length, returned.
He entered the house by the back door, having driven the gig, in which he generally did his country journeys, round to the stables himself, as he had dropped his groom in the town to execute an errand for him.
Ann was the first to hear her father's footsteps in the hall, and she would have rushed to meet him had not her mother stopped her.
"Don't be so impetuous, my dear," Mrs. Reed said quickly; "and don't be in too great a hurry to speak of the purse. I expect your father is tired and hungry; let him have a rest and something to eat, and afterwards tell him our news."
But Dr. Reed was neither tired nor hungry as it happened. He had dined at the country house where he had been to visit a patient—an old gentleman who was a chronic invalid.
"I should have been home half-an-hour earlier, but as I was passing the Recreation Ground I was stopped and told there had been an accident there," he explained, "so I got out of the gig and went to see if my services were required."
"And were they, Andrew?" asked his wife.
"No, my dear. Dr. Elizabeth Ridgeway had already been sent for and had arrived before me."