'Quite so!' said Captain Lake, gently.
'Though all the world does not think with us, I can tell you, things come before us in our profession. Oh, ho! ho!' and Mr. Larkin lifted up his pink eyes and long hands, and shook his long head, with a melancholy smile and a sigh like a shudder.
When at the later breakfast, up at Brandon, that irregular pencilled scroll reached Lord Chelford's hand, he said, as he glanced on the direction—
'This is Mark Wylder's; what does he say?'
'So Mark's gone to town,' he said; 'but he'll be back again on Saturday, and in the meantime desires me to lay his heart at your feet, Dorcas. Will you read the note?'
'No,' said Dorcas, quietly.
Lady Chelford extended her long, shrivelled fingers, on which glimmered sundry jewels, and made a little nod to her son, who gave it to her, with a smile. Holding her glasses to her eyes, the note at a distance, and her head rather back, she said—
'It is not a pretty billet,' and she read in a slow and grim way:—
'DEAR CHELFORD,—I'm called up to London just for a day. No lark, but honest business. I'll return on Saturday; and tell Dorcas, with dozens of loves, I would write to her, but have not a minute for the train.
'Yours, &c.