“It is settled, then, that we go to Clovelly,” said Jack. “Bring me the A B C Guide, please” (this to the waiter who had just brought in the post).
“Quite settled, and we go at once,” said Mrs. Jack, whose joy at arriving at a place is only equalled by her joy in leaving it. “Penelope, hand me my letters, please; if you were not my guest I should say I had never witnessed such an appetite. Tommy, what news from father? Atlas, how can you drink three cups of British coffee? Oh-h-h, how more than lucky, how heavenly, how providential! Egeria is coming!”
“Egeria?” we cried with one rapturous voice.
“Read your letter carefully, Kitty,” said Jack; “you will probably find that she wishes she might come, but finds it impossible.”
“Or that she certainly would come if she had anything to wear,” drawled Tommy.
“Or that she could come perfectly well if it were a few days later,” quoth I.
Mrs. Jack stared at us superciliously, and lifting an absurd watch from her antique chatelaine, observed calmly, “Egeria will be at this hotel in one hour and fifteen minutes; I telegraphed her the night before last, and this letter is her reply.”
“Who is Egeria?” asked Atlas, looking up from his own letters. “She sounds like a character in a book.”
Mrs. Jack: “You begin, Penelope.”
Penelope: “No, I’d rather finish; then I can put in everything that you omit.”