"A house in London is to be hired as soon as Peter comes home."
"Is that all? But surely that is very natural. For my part, I have often wondered why none of you ever cared to go to London, if only for your shopping. I am very fond of a trip to town myself, now and then, for a few days."
"A few days, it seems, would not suffice our cousin John's notions. He is pleased to think Peter may require skilled medical attendance; and, since he wrote he was in rags, a new outfit. These, it seems, can only be obtained in the Metropolis nowadays. My brother's tailor still lives in Exeter; and with all his faults—and nobody can dislike him more than I do—I have never heard it denied that Dr. Blundell is a skilful apothecary."
"Very skilful," added Miss Crewys. "You remember, Isabella, how quickly he put your poor little Fido out of his agony."
"That is nothing; all doctors understand animals' illnesses. They kill numbers of guinea-pigs before they are allowed to try their hands on human beings," said Lady Belstone. "The point is, that if my poor brother Timothy had not been mad enough to go to London, he would have been alive at this moment. I have never heard of Dr. Blundell finding it necessary—much as I detest the man—to perform an operation on anybody."
"Apart from this painful subject, my dear lady," murmured the canon,
"I presume it is only a furnished house that Lady Mary contemplates?"
"During all the years of his married life Sir Timothy never hired a furnished house," said Miss Crewys. "The home of his fathers sufficed him."
"She may want a change?" suggested the canon.
Miss Crewys interpreted him literally. "No; she is in the best of health."
"Better than I have ever seen her, and—and gayer" said Lady
Belstone, with emphasis.