"Thorpe? Celestine?" repeated Sir Hilary, making the, to him, unusual effort of searching his memory. "No, I can't say—unless you were the girl that went to school with Sis, that she got me to write letters to. I forget that girl's name."
"Why, 'twas Celestine Thorpe," said the lady.
"So 'twas, now I think on't. Well, well, how Sis used to plague me, to make me answer your letters, to be sure! It seems the girls at your school had read some novel or such book, Palemia, or Pamelia, or some name or other, that got you to pestering all your own relations and one another's with letters. I never used to read yours through, but Sister would make me answer 'em, ne'ertheless."
At this point Lord George returned, and, on his invitation, the four went into the parlor of the two gentlemen, Dick hastily closing the door between parlor and bedchamber, and Miss Thorpe telling the others, with a look half pleading and half threatening at Dick, that Miss Englefield would join them soon. Servants now came and laid a table for breakfast, under Wilkins's direction. Wine being brought, Sir Hilary fell upon it immediately, pleading his long ride in excuse. Meanwhile Dick, mystified at the conduct of Amabel, supposed she would now use the opportunity to go from the bedchamber to the corridor; and wondered how long she would defer meeting her brother.
Those in the parlor, while the table was being made ready, were grouped about the window, which looked out from the side of the inn; Miss Thorpe seated, Lord George at her one elbow, Sir Hilary at the other. The fox-hunter, repeating frequently his glass of wine, from a bottle on a near-by side-table, became rapidly more gay and familiar, especially towards Celestine, whose former characteristics he now proceeded to recall. At this, Lord George began to show irritation, while the lady's own composure was far from increased.
"Lord," said the baronet, looking mirthful at the recollection, "what soft stuff it was, in the letters you used to plague me with! I said to Sis one day, 'I've heard as how girls at boarding-schools pine for gentlemen's society and go crazy to be made love to,' I said, 'but I never fancied one of 'em to have such a coming-on disposition as Celestine has.' Lord, Lord, 'twas a tender soul!"
This was going beyond the endurance alike of Celestine, whose present character was so different from that ascribed to the baronet's former correspondent, and of Lord George, who felt doubly chafed to think that tenderness denied him had been heaped upon another. Miss Thorpe turned crimson under his look. Having to vent his anger on some one, his lordship naturally chose the reminiscent fox-hunter.
"Is it a Berkshire custom, sir," queried Lord George, heatedly, "to treat the confidence of ladies in this manner?"
Sir Hilary, after a moment of bewilderment, disavowed the least intention to offend, but his own tone showed a decided resentment of Lord George's. This fact did not make his lordship's reply any sweeter, and the upshot of their brief but swift verbal passage was that Sir Hilary departed in high dudgeon, saying he would find his sister and start for home at once. Dick slipped quietly into the bedchamber, and, to his surprise, found Amabel still there.
"Why didn't you go out that way," he whispered, pointing to the corridor door, "while we were in the parlor?"