"Of course he will want it. And--do you know what mamma has done? Brought home with her that horrible Miss Denison. I wonder papa let her. The last time she was with us--but that was at Westerbury--there was no peace in the house for her. She was always quarrelling with me, and of course I quarrelled with her again. Nothing that I did was right; and one day she actually got mamma to lock me in my room for two hours, because she said I had been insolent to her. You'll get leave for me to stay, Sir Isaac?"
He gave her a reassuring smile, and sat down to chess again. The dean talked with Mrs. St. John, Georgina flitted incessantly from them to the chess-players, making every one as merry as she was; Frederick alone seemed quiet and abstracted. He sat apart, near the tea-table, a cup before him, as if tea-drinking was his whole business in life.
The evening wore on. When ten o'clock struck, the dean rose, saying he had not supposed it to be so late.
"You will spare Georgina to us a little longer?" said Sir Isaac. They were still at chess, of which it seemed Mrs. Carleton never tired; and he rose as he spoke to the dean.
"Until tomorrow. She must come home then."
"Oh, papa!" broke in the really earnest voice, "do let me stay longer. You know why I wish to--it's because of that Miss Denison."
The dean looked grave.
"Only a few days longer, papa; just a few days. Then I will come home. It will take me all that time to get over the shock."
But there was a merry twinkle in her eye; and the dean smiled. Whilst he was shaking hands with Mrs. Carleton, Georgina turned suddenly to Frederick. "Won't you say a word for me? You once called Miss Denison an old hag yourself."
"It must have been when I was a rude boy," he answered.