'Prue heard from her the other day,' says Peggy, speaking slowly and with an overclouded brow; 'she asked Prue to pay her a visit.'
'H'm! What possessed her to do that, I wonder? I suppose Freddy wheedled her into it. Well, and when is she to go?'
'She—she's not going.'
'H'm! You would not give her leave?'
Peggy glances expressively at Miss Harborough, who has dropped her knife and fork, and is listening with all her ears to what has the obvious yet poignant charm of not being intended for them.
'Pooh!' replies milady, following the direction of Margaret's look. 'Ne faites pas attention à ces marmots! ils ne comprennent pas de quoi il s'agit!'
At the sound of the French words a look of acute baffled misery has come into Lily's face, which, later on, deepens on her being assured that she and her brother have sufficiently feasted, and may efface themselves. Franky gallops off joyfully with his sword; and his sister follows reluctantly with hers. As soon as they are really out of earshot—Peggy has learnt by experience the length of Lily's ears—she answers the question that had been put to her by another.
'Do you think that I ought to have let her go?'
Milady shrugs her shoulders.
'Everybody goes there. Lady Clanranald, who is the most straitlaced woman in London, takes her girls there; one must march with one's age.'