“Oh, Reginald, do you think Stevenson always knows?” cried Lucy, “He promised us fine weather the day of the bazaar, and there was a storm and everything spoiled in the afternoon.”
“I am of the same opinion as Stevenson,” said Mr. Wradisley, very quietly, which settled the matter; and, then, to be more wonderful still, he asked if the house were to be open, and if it was to be expected that any of the guests would wish to see his collection. “In that case I should direct Simmons to be in attendance,” he said.
“Oh, if you would, Reginald!—that would give us great éclat,” said his mother; “but I did not venture to ask. It is so very kind of you to think of it, of yourself. Of course it will be wished—everybody will wish it; but I generally put them off, you know, for I know you don’t like to be worried, and I would not worry you for the world.”
“You are too good to me, mother. There is no reason why I should be worried. It is, of course, my affair as much as any one’s,” he said, in his perfectly gentle yet pointed way, which made the others, even Mrs. Wradisley herself, feel a little small, as if she had been assuming an individual responsibility which she had not the right to assume.
“My show won’t come to much if Rege is going to exhibit, mother,” said Ralph. “I’d better keep them for another day.”
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Wradisley, with great suavity, “get out your savage stores. If the whole country is coming, as appears, there will be need for everything that we can do.”
“There were just as many people last time, Reginald, but you wouldn’t do anything,” said Lucy, half aggrieved, notwithstanding her mother’s “hush” and deprecating look.
“Circumstances are not always the same,” her brother said; “and I understood from my mother that this was to be the last.”
“For the season, Reginald,” said Mrs. Wradisley, with a certain alarm in her tone.
“To be sure. I meant for the season, of course—and in the circumstances,” he replied.