"Take that newspaper out of my coat pocket and spread it over my knees, won't you, Grey?" said Blake, the moment they were fairly seated in the stage. "Now your jack-knife, please, and I'll carve this fowl. I fear it'll not be very scientifically dismembered," he went on, when his requests had been complied with, "but sufficiently so to enable me to make a tolerably equal distribution. What is your choice, ma'am?" addressing Mrs. Lyon.
The result of their coup d'état was a very comfortable, enjoyable meal seasoned with many a merry jest over the discomfiture of the foe, and the makeshifts they themselves were put to for lack of the usual table appliances.
[CHAPTER IV.]
"Alas! my lord, if talking would prevail,
I could suggest much better arguments
Than those regards you throw away on me,
Your valor, honor, wisdom, prais'd by all.
But bid physicians talk our veins to temper
And with an argument new-set a pulse,
Then think, my lord, of reasoning into love."
Young.
By the time they reached Lansdale, Mildred was weary enough to be very glad of a few days' rest; rest whose delights were doubled and trebled by being taken in the society of her dear old aunt.
The travellers were received with the warmest of welcomes, Mildred embraced over and over again, and Mr. Lord repeatedly and heartily thanked for bringing her.
"Dear child, how you are improved!" Aunt Wealthy said the first moment they found themselves alone together.
"Have I grown, auntie?" Mildred asked with an arch smile, laying two shapely, soft white hands on the old lady's shoulders and gazing lovingly into her eyes, as they stood facing each other on the hearth-rug in front of the open fire-place in Miss Stanhope's cosey sitting-room; for it was a cool rainy evening, and the warmth of a small wood fire blazing and crackling there was by no means unpleasant.