"Yes, yes; that is on me."
His was an order of mind that would accept the most burdensome charges, and by some species of moral usury make a profit out of them.
Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress at a toothache, or possibly the first symptoms of an heir to his house.
"That child's mind has disease in it. She is not sound," said the baronet.
On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry. Her wish to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially communicated, she was ushered upstairs into his room.
Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to occupy.
"Well, ma'am, you have something to say," observed the baronet, for she seemed loath to commence.
"Wishin' I hadn't:" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued: "I dare say, Sir Austin, you don't remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our meeting'd be like this. Twenty year don't go over one without showin' it, no more than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,—twenty year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain't."
"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked.
"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got himself married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case.