“I don’t think you’re very ill.”
“I’m recovering gradually, only gradually. The least disturbance may throw me back.”
“Oh!”
“And meanwhile I’ll harry Spooner till he lets me be carried into your sanctum. What’s the good of all their carrying dodges if they don’t use them?”
Lady Wilmot put down the pug, rose up, and glanced mischievously at her cousin.
“Well, I hope you really mean it this time. Remember Helen Arbuthnot.”
“If you talk about remembering,” began Fenwick boldly. She was gone.
It must have been this conversation which made Lady Wilmot after luncheon walk with Claudia towards the Black Pond, and become enthusiastic in her praises of what had been done.
“We are so delighted!” she said. “Of course Peter thinks about the estate and all that kind of thing, but I think of Marjory. It’s such a comfort to feel that by the time she grows up, she’ll have a decent-looking place of her own ready for her, and really my heart sank when I brought her here after poor old Sir Ralph’s death.”
Claudia was pleased, but said quickly—