“Who said she could? She isn’t a stout elderly lady.”
The head of the family looked at his niece with a broad smile, as if in search of a laugh for his jest, but the smile that greeted him was very wan and wintry.
“Any letters, my dear?” said Mrs Wilton, as the breakfast went on, with Kate growing weary of her cousin’s attentions, all of which took the form of a hurried movement to her side of the table, and pressure brought to bear over the breakfast delicacies.
The wintry look appeared to be transferred from Kate’s to her uncle’s face, but it was not wan; on the contrary, it was decidedly stormy.
“Yes,” he said, with a grunt.
“Anything particular?”
“Yes, very.”
“What is it, my dear?”
“Don’t both—er—letter from John Garstang.”
“Oh, dear me!” said Mrs Wilton, looking aghast; and her husband kicked out one foot for her special benefit, but as his leg was not eight feet long the shot was a miss.