As the young people breasted the steep, Pixley—forgetting entirely his vow never to do it on foot again—unfolded to them Lady Elspeth's idea, which simply was, that if the Red House could hold them all,—of which she had her doubts, in spite of his assertions,—they should all share expenses and such household duties as so large a party would involve.
"You see—if you don't mind it, Mrs. Graeme,"—with an apologetic look at Margaret,—"it will give the two old ladies something to do and will leave us young folks freer to get about."
"It's a capital arrangement if the old ladies don't mind. Mrs. Carré can get in another girl. It will keep them all busy seeing that we have enough to eat. But they'll soon get used to looking forward two or three days and ordering Friday's dinner on Tuesday."
"How long can you stop, old man?" asked Graeme.
"A fortnight—all being well," and there was a touch of soberness in it as he said that. "There's really nothing doing, and Ormerod's a good fellow and insisted on it."
"We can do heaps in a fortnight," said Miss Penny jubilantly. "However did you manage to catch Lady Elspeth?"
"She's a grand old lady. I found her with my mother when I got there. She'd been with her ever since—since the trouble. And when I proposed bringing my mother she said at once that she was coming too. She had crows to pick with you two, and so on. I expect she thought my mother would feel things less if she was with her."
"She's an old dear," said Margaret. "They shall both have the very best time we can give them."
"I shall take them conger-eeling," said Graeme,—"and to Venus's Bath"
"And down the Boutiques and the Gouliots"—suggested Margaret.