"I'd stay fast enough, Penelope--there's the fishing; but I don't know about Clara. You must talk to her."
"You must talk to her," returned Mrs. Chester. "Nobody else has a tenth of the influence over her that you have."
"I'll see," said Mr. Lake, alighting from the dressing-table. "We'll stay a day or two longer, at any rate: I know I can promise that."
Mr. Lake went straight to his wife, and recounted to her, word for word as nearly as he could recollect, what Mrs. Chester had said. There was nothing covert in his disposition: his fault, if it was a fault, was undisguised openness. But he did not urge the matter one way or the other. Clara looked grave at the proposition, and he left it to her.
"I said we would remain a day or two longer, Clara. I thought you would not object to that, as it is to do her, as she fancies, good."
"I don't mind staying to the end of the week, Robert, now we are here. We will go home on Saturday, if you like."
"All right." And Mr. Lake strolled away in his careless lightness.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Justice Thornycroft's Visit.
The days passed pleasantly enough: Lady Ellis made herself agreeable, Mr. Lake was always so; and Clara nearly forgot her dream. On the Friday morning, a hot but cloudy day, Mr. Lake went out to fish. Lady Ellis and Fanny Chester strolled after him; and Mrs. Chester took the opportunity to--as she phrased it to herself--"tackle" Clara. That estimable and managing matron beguiled the young lady into the quiet and secluded nursery--a room above, that the children were never in--and there burst into a flood of tears over her work, the darning of a tablecloth, and laid her unhappy case bare in the broad light of day.