"Yes, my uncle. I laugh now, but it was very dreadful at the time."
"Thou art but a goose," he said, shrugging his shoulders; but immediately patted her hand lest her feelings should have been hurt. And, declining further argument, he demanded to be taken to the Great Vine.
It was in this fashion, Anna talking and Uncle Joachim making brief comments, that he came to know her as thoroughly as though he had lived with her all his life.
Soon after the excursion to Hampton Court a letter came that hurried his departure, to Susie's ill-concealed relief.
"My swines are ill," he informed her, greatly agitated, his fragile English going altogether to pieces in his perturbation; "my inspector writes they perpetually die. God keep thee, Anna," and he embraced her very tenderly, and bending hastily over Susie's hand muttered some conventionalities, and then disappeared into his four-wheeler and out of their lives.
They never saw him again.
"My swines are ill," mimicked Susie, when Anna, feeling that she had lost her one friend, came slowly back into the room, "my swines perpetually die—"
Anna was obliged to go and pray very hard at St. Paul's before she could forgive her.