“He will,” I said. “He has a perfectly tremendous sense of responsibility.”
“And now,” said my mother, “come along, all of you, to the drawing-room and have tea.”
“Is it all right?” said Hilda anxiously to me as we left the room.
“Quite,” I said; “there’ll be no prosecution. My mother can do anything she likes with the Archdeacon, just as she does with Lalage. He’ll not enforce a single penalty.”
“She’s wonderful,” said Hilda.
I quite agreed. She is. Even Miss Pettigrew could not do as much. It was more by good luck than anything else that she succeeded in luring Lalage away from Ballygore.
CHAPTER XIX
I congratulated my mother that night on her success in dealing with Lalage.
“Your combination,” I said, “of tact, firmness, sympathy, and reasonableness was most masterly.”