They went in. Mr. Lake returned to the charge.
"You will go on Christmas-day, Clary, won't you? Penelope is preparing for us."
"No; I am not well enough. And if I were, I should prefer to be at home. Say no more," she added almost passionately interrupting what he was about to urge. "You ought not to wish me to go there."
A long silence. "I shall go. I must. I can't get off it."
She did not speak.
"What is to be done, Clara? It will never do for me to spend Christmas-day there, and you to spend it at home." And he finished the clause by breaking out, half-singing, half muttering, with the lines of a popular ditty that our childhood was familiar with--
"To-morrow is our wedding-day, and all the world would stare
If wife should dine at Edmonton, and I should dine at Ware."
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She sat with her hands folded before her, and did not immediately answer. If he could not tell what was to be done, or what ought to be done, she would not. Mr. Lake looked at her and waited.
"You must do as you think right," she said, laying a slight stress upon the word. "I am too unwell to be anywhere but at home on Christmas-day."