“Why, my dear Luke Vine, why didn’t you speak? What is it? oh, pray say.”
“Society,” said Uncle Luke, after pausing for a moment to turn towards the window, a gust having giving it a tremendous shake. “I say if I find my place blown away, can you find me a dry shed or a dog kennel, or something, Leslie?”
“Don’t talk such stuff, Luke Vine,” cried Mrs Van Heldre. “Don’t take any notice of him, Mr Leslie, he’s a rich old miser and nothing else. Now Luke Vine, what do you mean?”
“Said what I meant, society. Why didn’t you ask my sister to dinner? She’d have set us all right, eh, Madelaine?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Madelaine, smiling.
“But I do,” cried her mother; “she’d have set us all by the ears with her nonsense. You are a strange pair.”
“We are—we are. Nice sherry this, Van.”
“Glad you like it,” said Van Heldre, with his eyes turned towards the window, as if he expected news.
“How a woman can be so full of pride and so useless puzzles me.”
“Mamma!” whispered Madelaine, with an imploring look.