“God forbid!” said Trevor, earnestly. “While I live, this is your home, and I shall interfere but little with you in the conduct of the house. But I take this opportunity of saying that I must ask of you both to remember—old friends as well as old servants of the family—that I have now come back to take my position here as the master of Penreife, and that, in speaking to me before visitors, ‘Master Dick’ sounds rather childish. That will do, Mrs Lloyd. Yes, Lloyd, you can bring in some of the claret.”
He walked into the dining-room, the quiet, calm man of the world, with enough dignity and self-assertion to show the housekeeper that the days of her rule had departed for ever.
“That’s going to sea, that is,” she muttered. “That’s being used to order people about, and being an officer. But we shall see, Master Dick—we shall see!”
And with a quick, spasmodic twitching of her hands as she smoothed down her apron, she went back muttering to her own room.
Mishaps.
Lunch at Tolcarne that day was not one of the most pleasant of meals. Sir Hampton had come in, looking purple instead of red with his walk, to pause at the hall door and dismiss Sanders, the gardener, who stood mopping his face.
“Er-rum! Look here, Sanders!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, sir,” said Sanders.
“Yes, Sir Hampton, man!”