Patience carefully tucked all the clothes round him and then left the room with a look of triumph on her face.
"Now, Basil Beaumont," she said when she was outside the door. "I think I can laugh at you and your threats about my son."
[CHAPTER XXII.]
PHANTASMAGORIA.
Shadows of what are shadows--living once
Now naught but ghosts among a world of ghosts.
Who knows--we may but shadows be on earth
And act the other life's realities.
Miss Cassy was greatly excited over the afternoon tea to which she had bidden Mrs. Larcher and the rest of the vicarage inmates. It was a long time since she had taken part in a little social festivity such as she had been accustomed to in London, so both herself and Una determined it should be a success. In the dreary dismal life they led this was a little mild excitement, consequently, it was to them as great an event as the ball of the season to a Town belle.
Reginald and Pumpkin walked over to the Grange, but Mrs. Larcher was driven over in state by Dick Pemberton, who drove at such a speed that he nearly rattled the vicar's wife into hysterics. Consequently on arriving at her destination, Mrs. Larcher was severely under the sway of "The Affliction" and had to be at once comforted with strong tea. Cecilia had also been invited, and arrived at the Grange under the guardianship of Miss Busky, who bounced the blind girl so rapidly along the road that she entered the Park in a state of exhaustion.
The party all assembled in Una's private room, where they were shortly afterwards joined by bluff Dr. Larcher and Beaumont. Jellicks, having wriggled in with the tea-cake and muffins, was dismissed altogether, as Mrs. Larcher, under the influence of "The Affliction," declared the old woman made her feel creepy.
"She's so twisty, my dear," she observed to Una, "like a sea-serpent you know--even the vicar has noticed her."
"Qui siccis oculis monstra natantia," roared the vicar, quoting from his favourite poet, "though to be sure, I speak of her in the singular."