“Why, my cousin George, of course; he is going to let me alone, I tell you.”
“Which, seeing how as he isn’t fit to touch you with a pair of tongs, is about the least as he can do, miss, and, as for letting you alone, I didn’t know as he ever proposed doing anything else. But that reminds me, miss, though I am sure I don’t know why it should, how as Mrs. Hawkins, as was put in to look after the vicarage while the Reverend Fraser was away, told me last night how as she had got a telegraft the sight of which, she said, knocked her all faint like, till she turned just as yellow as the cover, to say nothing of four- and-six porterage, the which, however, she intends to recover from the Reverend—Lord, where was I?”
“I am sure I don’t know, Pigott, but I suppose you were going to tell me what was in the telegram.”
“Yes, miss, that’s right; but my head does seem to wool up somehow so at times that I fare to lose my way.”
“Well, Pigott, what was in the telegram?”
“Lord, miss, how you do hurry one, begging your pardon; only that the Reverend Fraser—not but what Mrs. Hawkins do say that it can’t be true, because the words warn’t in his writing nor nothing like, as she has good reason to know, seeing that——”
“Yes, but what about Mr. Fraser, Pigott? Isn’t he well?”
“The telegraft didn’t say, as I remembers, miss; bless me, I forget if it was to-day or to-morrow.”
“Oh, Pigott,” groaned Angela, “do tell me what was in the telegram.”
“Why, miss, surely I told you that the thing said, though I fancy likely to be in error——”