“You have frightened him away, Johnny Ludlow,” cried Charlotte: but she spoke in jest.
“He was already going,” said Mina. “He told me he had an engagement.”
“And a good thing too,” spoke Mrs. Knox, crossly. “Fancy his giving dangerous notions to Dicky!”
Dicky had just discovered our loss. He came shrieking back to know where the captain was. Gone away for good, his mother told him. Upon which young Dicky plunged into a fit of passion and kicking.
“Do you know how Lady Jenkins is to-day?” I asked of Charlotte, when Dicky’s noise had been appeased by a promise of cold apple-pudding for tea.
“Not so well.”
“Not so well! I had thought of her as being much better.”
“I don’t think her so,” continued Charlotte. “Madame St. Vincent told Mina this morning that she was all right; but when I went in just now she was in bed and could hardly answer me.”
“Is her cold worse?”
“No; I think that is gone, or nearly so. She seemed dazed—stupid, more so than usual.”