“For the winter!” repeated Charlotte, her tone growing sober. “What for? Where to?”
“To some place where the skies are more genial than in this cold climate of ours,” replied George. “If I wish to get thoroughly well, they say, I must start off next month, September, and not return until April.”
“But—should you go alone?”
“There’s the worst of it. We poor bachelors are like stray sheep—nobody owning us, nobody caring for us.”
“Take somebody with you,” suggested Charlotte.
“That’s easier said than done,” said George.
Charlotte threw one of her brilliant glances at him. She had risen, and was standing before him, all her attractions in full play. “There’s an old saying, Mr. George Godolphin, that where there’s a will, there’s a way,” quoth she.
George made a gallant answer, and they were progressing in each other’s good graces to their own content, when an interruption came to it. The same servant who had opened the door to the stranger entered.
“Miss Pain, if you please, my master says will you go up to him.”
“I declare you make me forget everything,” cried Charlotte to George, as she left the room. And picking up her King Charley, she threw it at him. “There! take care of him, Mr. George Godolphin, until I come back again.”