"Two or three" (with a yawn).
"You are going out to-morrow again, of course?" with a slight attempt at a pout, which is not even perceived by the person for whose benefit it is intended.
"No, I think not; it is five-and-twenty miles, and the trains do not fit: one gets lazy in one's old age. I suppose I shall agree soon with Brakespeare, of the —th, who sent seven horses down to Melton last year; and at the end of the season confessed that he hated hunting, and that he thought it a very dangerous amusement."
"Really?" answers Constance, who always takes everything au sérieux, opening her great eyes.
"No, not really—most assuredly!" he answers, laughing lazily. "On the contrary, I am nearer coinciding with the opinion of the Jewish gentleman, who said it would be a very pleasant world if there were no shummers and no shabbaths."
It is hardly worth Miss Craven's while, you will perceive, to lose her place twice, and get rated by her old employer, for the sake of hearing brilliant questions and answers of the above description. Though her jealous eyes are fixed upon the Saturday's columns, they see, none the less clearly, those two figures reclined upon the distant sofa. Once she sees St. John raise himself, and, stooping forward over his companion, speak with more animation than he has yet used. If she break the drum of her ear in the attempt, she must catch the drift of that remark—some delicious tender nothing, no doubt. She succeeds:
"By-the-bye, Conny, how was the lump on your pony's leg when you left home?"
As another and another article follow the first, Esther's cough becomes increasingly troublesome: her throat aches with the effort of reading: her voice at each paragraph waxes huskier and huskier. For several minutes past Gerard's answers to Miss Blessington's questions have been growing ever more wildly random; suddenly he leaves the sofa, and comes over to Mr. Blessington's armchair.
"Will you let me read to you a bit?" he asks, in that loud unmodulated roar that people unused to the deaf think the only method of making them hear.
"Eh! what does he say?" inquires the old gentleman, sharply, lifting his head, and peering blindly up in the direction whence the voice came.