"Dear me, can it be?"
Mr. Dale gazed upward, with the feelings of one awakened late to see a world alive in broad daylight.
Lady Busshe dropped her voice. She took the liberty permitted to her with an inferior in station, while treating him to a tone of familiarity in acknowledgment of his expected rise; which is high breeding, or the exact measurement of social dues.
"Laetitia will be happy, you may be sure. I love to see a long and faithful attachment rewarded—love it! Her tale is the triumph of patience. Far above Grizzel! No woman will be ashamed of pointing to Lady Patterne. You are uncertain? You are in doubt? Let me hear—as low as you like. But there is no doubt of the new shifting of the scene?—no doubt of the proposal? Dear Mr. Dale! a very little louder. You are here because—? of course you wish to see Sir Willoughby. She? I did not catch you quite. She? . . . it seems, you say . . . ?"
Lady Culmer said to the Patterne ladies:—
"You must have had a distressing time. These affairs always mount up to a climax, unless people are very well bred. We saw it coming. Naturally we did not expect such a transformation of brides: who could? If I had laid myself down on my back to think, I should have had it. I am unerring when I set to speculating on my back. One is cooler: ideas come; they have not to be forced. That is why I am brighter on a dull winter afternoon, on the sofa, beside my tea-service, than at any other season. However, your trouble is over. When did the Middletons leave?"
"The Middletons leave?" said the ladies.
"Dr. Middleton and his daughter."
"They have not left us."
"The Middletons are here?"