"We're all to blame," she exclaimed, "I'm just as much to blame as
Margie . . . she'll be fearfully upset I don't know how to tell her."
"Tell you what," exclaimed the General, "I'll write to Ffolliot . . . I'll do it now, this instant, and the letter will catch the 7.30 post . . ."
At the door he paused and added more cheerfully, "I shall enjoy writing to Ffolliot."
CHAPTER XVIII
WHAT FOLLOWED
As General Grantly had predicted, Mrs Ffolliot was very much upset when she heard about Ger's eyes, and was for rushing up to London herself, there and then to interview the oculist. But Mr Ffolliot dissuaded her. For one thing, he hated Redmarley without her even for a single night. For another, he considered such a journey a needless expense. This, however, he did not mention, but contented himself with the suggestion that it would seem a reflection upon Mrs Grantly's competence to do anything of the kind; and that consideration weighed heavily with his wife where the other would have been brushed aside as immaterial and irrelevant. "I can't understand it," the Squire remarked plaintively; "I did not know there had ever been any eye trouble in your family."
"There never has, so far as I know; but surely," and Mrs Ffolliot spoke with something less than her usual gentle deference, "we needn't seek far to find where Ger gets his."
"Do you mean that he inherits it from ME?"
"Well, my dear Larrie, surely you've got defective sight, else why the monocle?"
"But Ger isn't a bit like me. He is all Grantly. In character, I sometimes think he resembles your mother, he is so fond of society; in appearance he's very like the others, except the Kitten. Now, if the Kitten's sight had been astigmatic . . ."