“Oh dear no, and never will be, my dear,” said Warner. “Don’t you fear. It is that little audacious chap Croft I came about.”
“Are you going back by the next or the last train?” asked Bennet.
“By the next; I must if possible,” replied Warner.
“Then make haste, missus,” said Bennet, turning to his wife, “and get us a cup of tea. I’m going over to the station and will give you a lift,” he said to Warner, “and we can go on with our chat on the road.”
The snug little tea-party had barely sat down when Mrs Bennet heard a knock at the door, and then in came Saunders, the cook, from the house, who had been sent down by Miss Dove with her customary basket of odds and ends, but she did not know that Lucy and a stranger were there.
When Saunders was introduced to Warner, she exclaimed,—
“Bless me, I ought to know that name; and now I look at you— But don’t you know me, Simon?”
“Why, goodness me! it’s surely never Miss Saunders?”
“The same, sir, as I was when I knew you in Sydenham. You thought at that time of entering the force.”
“Yes; and so I did. How glad I am to see you again.”