“Well, it isn’t exactly—funny,” said Elizabeth, very red and more breathless than a fit of laughter should have left a gay young woman. “It’s more—what you would call peculiar, isn’t it, Mr. Deane?”
She paused, recovered her self-control with a rapidity that astonished Andy, and added briskly, “I must tell mamma about it; but no doubt his vocabulary will come back.”
“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Petch. “I doubt it very much.”
Elizabeth walked to the door and said good-bye, but at the last minute she turned back.
“Mrs. Petch, I think William had better give up taking the medicine that turns his tail yellow before mamma sees him, don’t you?”
Outside, Norah and the pony-cart were already in sight, so Andy only had time to murmur hastily—
“I say, you really ought to tell Mrs. Atterton; it’s a shame to let yourself be done like——”
“Hush!” interrupted Elizabeth. “I am the only person it really matters to, because the money comes out of my pocket eventually. I inherit my aunt’s fortune when I am twenty-five, you know.”
“It isn’t a question of money only,” began Andy instructively.
“Then what is it?” laughed Elizabeth. But a glance at his face showed her that something else must be done, and she put her hand lightly on his arm.