"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
Diana quite alarmed me."
"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution—and frightened me dreadfully."
"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on very well, I dare say, with care. But Miss Paget is a very sensible young woman, and is right in what she says. Charlotte's constitution is not strong."
"O Philip!" said Georgy, in a faint wailing voice.
"I dare say she will live to follow you and me to our graves," said Mr.
Sheldon, with a hard laugh. "Ah, here she is!"
Here she was, coming towards the open window near which her stepfather sat. Here she was, pale and tired, with her sauntering walk, dressed in white, and spectral in the gloaming. To the sad eyes of her mother she looked like a ghost. To the eyes of Philip Sheldon, a man not prone to poetic fancies, she looked even more ghostlike.