“Oh! Horrible! I was having dreadful dreams all last night. You do think so, then?”
“Yes, you’ve hit it now, old lady. She must have jumped down from her window on to the soft flower-bed, and then gone and fetched the ladder, and put it up there, and afterwards gone and called Claud to come down and go hand in hand with her, so as to have company.”
“Jumped down—the ladder—what did she want a ladder for, James, dear?”
“What do people want ladders for? Why, to come down by.”
“But she was down, dear. I—I really don’t know what you mean. You confuse me so. But, oh, James, dear, you don’t mean that about Claud?”
“Why not? Depend upon it, they’re at the bottom of that hole where the pig was drowned, and the pike are eating bits out of them.”
“James!—Oh, what a shame! You’re laughing at me.”
“Laughing at you? You’d make a horse laugh at you. Such idiocy. Be quiet if you can. Don’t you see how worried and busy I am? And look here—if anyone calls out of curiosity, you don’t know anything. Refer ’em to me.”
“Yes, my dear. But really it is very shocking of the young people. It’s almost immoral. But you think they will get married directly?”
“Trust Claud for that. Fancy the jade going off in that way. Ah, they’re all alike.”