"I hope Spinks won't go shooting fowls and things in his off-time," Ger said anxiously. "I must warn him."
"Pheasants wouldn't matter so much," the Kitten said leniently, "I asked Willets; but turkeys is orful."
"Not at all sporting to shoot turkeys," Ger agreed, "though they are so cross and gobbly."
In the middle of February Mrs Ffolliot fell a victim to influenza, and she was really very ill.
At first she would not allow anyone to tell her husband about it, but when she became too weak to write herself, Mary took it upon her to inform her father of her mother's state. The doctor insisted on sending a nurse, as three of the servants had also collapsed, and Mrs Grantly came down from Woolwich to see to things generally; though when she came, she acknowledged that Mary had done everything that could be done.
Mr Ffolliot curtailed his holiday by a week, and returned at the end of February, to find his wife convalescent, but thin and pale and weak as he had never before seen her during their married life.
He decided that he would take her for a fortnight to Bournemouth.
But Mrs Grantly had other views.
She, Mary, and Mr Ffolliot were sitting at breakfast the day after his return, when he suggested the Bournemouth plan with what Willets would have called his most "Emp'rish air."
Mrs Grantly looked across at Mary and the light of battle burned in her bright brown eyes.