"Oh-o! He has been ill, then?"
"Very ill. But I hear he was pronounced out of danger on Wednesday."
"Is it not good news?" cried Mrs. Simpson. "Such a misfortune for his young family! I mean if he had died, you know."
"But I suppose he's a warm man, isn't he? Cadell and Bransby—it's a fine business, isn't it?" asked Mr. Weatherhead.
"It had need be," rejoined the organist, "to maintain that tribe of boys and girls, and an extravagant young wife into the bargain."
"Oh, Bassy, but they are such pretty children! And Mrs. Bransby is so truly elegant and interesting. All her bonnets come from Paris, I am told. And indeed there is a certain style——Eh? You don't mean to say that spades are trumps? What a disappointment! I thought I had all four honours."
This ingenuous speech might have called forth some remonstrance from Mrs. Simpson's partner, but that the latter was too much interested in the subject of the Bransbys to attend to it.
"The eldest son is provided for by his mother's fortune, isn't he?" he inquired.
"Well—'provided for;' I don't know that it is very much. But it was all tightly settled. Otherwise Bransby's second marriage would have been a greater misfortune for the young man than it is," replied the organist.
"I don't see that it is any misfortune at all," observed Mrs. Dobbs. "Theodore Bransby is quite well enough off for a young fellow. And why shouldn't his father marry again if he liked it?"