"Oh, dear no," said Miss Cassy lightly, "though he has got nerves--so very odd, isn't it? but this time the dear doctor says it's lungs--something gone wrong--a kind of what's-his-name thing, you know--if he doesn't take care he'll get that disease--so odd--something about a moan."
"Oh, pneumonia," observed Beaumont gravely. "I hope not, it's very dangerous, and to an old man like the squire, doubly so."
"I have had it," said Mrs. Larcher, who by her own showing possessed every disease under the sun. "Acute inflammation of the lungs, it left me a wreck--a prostrate wreck--did it not, Eleanora Gwendoline?"
"It did, mama," replied the dutiful Pumpkin.
"It might come on again," said Mrs. Larcher, opening her smelling-bottle. "I'll have a cup of hot tea when I go home, and a hot bottle to my feet."
"I wonder she doesn't have a mustard plaster and a fly blister," whispered Dick to Una, "might draw some of the bosh out of her."
Una laughed, and the great lumbering barouche of the Grange having arrived, driven by the stony Munks, she preferred to enter it, followed by the chattering Cassy.
"So cold, isn't it?" said that lady, "quite like the North Pole. Captain what's-his-name, you know, Parry, puts me in mind of Paris--French style--so odd. I'll see you to-morrow, Mr. Beaumont, and oh, Mrs. Larcher, will you come to tea next week--Thursday--what do you say, Una? Friday, oh yes--Friday."
"If my affliction permits me," said Mrs. Larcher in a stately tone, "I will try."
"So glad," replied the volatile Cassy, "and you come also Mr. Blake, and of course Mr. Pemberton, not forgetting Mr. Beaumont; so very nice to see one's friends. Oh, yes, Munks, we're quite ready, good-night--so pleased--delightful concert--odd--very odd."