“Do they never come up to London?”
“Oh yes, they are always in town from Christmas to Easter. They are not people who do much in the way of society, but in any case that would not affect you this year in your deep mourning.”
Bonnybell’s lip quivered, as if in preparation for a tear or two, but they were relentlessly snubbed back by their owner.
“Of course it would not.”
“But you shall help me with my Happy Evenings again,” continued Felicity, perceiving the droop in her young friend’s spirits, and with bowels genuinely yearning over her; “and the Fancy Fair for the All England Cataleptics will be coming off in May. You shall help me with that too. Oh, I am not joking; I really cannot say how much I shall miss my dear little right hand! There is the carriage,” as the butler entered to announce that the brougham was at the door. “This is really too sad! How I do hate the word ‘good-bye!’”
There were tears of real regret in Felicity’s eyes, and a quiver in her voice, as she explained that if the wind were not so cold she would accompany her protégée to the hall door; and that she would say good-bye for her to Tom, who would be so sorry to have been out at the moment of her departure. But as it happened Tom had no need to be sorry. Tom was not out. As the long black slimness set its narrow foot on the last step of the stair, Tom emerged from the smoking-room.
“I am coming to see you off. I will jump into a hansom, and be at Paddington before you,” he said with a carefully lowered voice.
“You will do nothing of the kind,” came the precipitate answer. “I mean”—with a dove-like gentleness of correction of whatever was harsh in her first utterance, “that there is no place so odious for saying good-bye as at a railway-station.”
“It shall be as you wish. God bless you, dear!”
Tom’s heart was as large as his waistcoat, and there was a tear in his blue eye. It was still trembling there, as he turned from the street door, whence the neat green brougham was no longer visible, to face his wife, who, remembering a forgotten last word, had run downstairs just too late to utter it.