Letter from a friend--put aside to be read at leisure.
A long blue letter--suspicious--disposed of without reading.
"Ha! Amy, love, here is Sweater & Co.'s fourth letter. Threatens us with--ah, you know."
"Well, dear," says Mrs. Trelawney with her sweetest smile, "just let them sweat!"
"Give 'em a bill, I suppose," the colonel says, as if speaking to himself.
And the letter is put aside.
So one way or another Trelawney got through his pile at last, and settled down to serious eating, that is, he made a hearty meal from a Londoner's point of view. Then he lit a cigarette.
Well the month of January was raw and disagreeable, and seldom was there a day without a fog either white or yellow.
Is it any wonder that, brought up in a clear transparent atmosphere among breezes that blew over heathy hills, and were laden with the balsamic odour of the pine-trees, Duncan and Conal began to languish and long for home.
With great candour they told "Auntie" they wanted to get home to enjoy skating, tobogganing, and white-hare shooting; and she promised to speak to the colonel.