"Where will be the use of our new dresses now!" she exclaimed.
"Where will be the use of anything," retorted Mrs. Arkell. "Don't whirl your chain round like that, Charlotte, giving me the fidgets!"
Charlotte dropped her chain. A bright idea had occurred to her.
"If papa's objection lies in the purchase of tickets, let us ask Henry Arkell for his, mamma. Mrs. Peter is sure to be too ill to go."
One minute's pause of thought, and Mrs. Arkell caught at the suggestion, as a famished outcast catches at the bread offered to him. If a doubt obtruded itself, that their appearing at the concert at all would be almost as unpalatable to her husband as their spending money upon its tickets, she conveniently put it out of sight.
The gentlemen forming the choir of the cathedral, both lay-clerks and choristers, had been solicited to give their services to the concert; as an acknowledgment two tickets were presented to each of them, in common with the amateur performers. Henry Arkell had, of course, two with the rest, and these were the tickets thought of by Charlotte.
Not a moment lost Mrs. Arkell. Away went she to pay a visit to Mrs. Peter—a most unusual condescension; and it impressed Mrs. Peter accordingly, who was lying on her sofa that day, very poorly indeed. Mrs. Arkell at once proclaimed the motive of her visit; she did not beat about the bush, or go to work with crafty diplomacy, but she plunged into it with open frankness, telling of their terrible disappointment, through Mr. Arkell's objecting, on principle, to buy tickets.
"If you do not particularly wish to go yourself, Mrs. Peter—I know how unequal you are to exertion—and would give Henry's tickets to myself and Charlotte, I should feel more obliged than I can express."
There was one minute's hesitation on Mrs. Peter Arkell's part. She had really wished to go to this concert; she was nursing herself up to be able to go; and she knew how greatly Lucy, who had but few chances of any sort of pleasure, was looking forward to it. But the hesitation lasted the minute only; the next, the coveted tickets, with their pretty little red seal in the corner, were in the hand of Mrs. Arkell.
She went home as elated as though she had taken an enemy's ship at sea, and were sailing into port with it.