“Serge!” said Mary.
“Serge!” said Gertrude, snatched from her tender dreams.
“Is he rich?” asked Minna.
“I don’t know. He talks of coming home.”
“Where is he?” This came from Frederic.
“He wrote from Durban in South Africa.”
“Oh! Then of course he’s a millionaire. Hurrah! He’ll buy Frederic a partnership, and me a husband—catch me marrying a poor man—and Mary a genuine Strad, and Gertie a—an acolyte.”
Gertrude flushed hotly and looked daggers across the table.
“He merely writes that he is coming home, as though he had only been away a week.”
“Some of you children can hardly remember him,” said Martha.