"Olive, look what Mr. Gaythorne has given me."
"Jack Travers! is that the poor man in the Models? Oh, Marcus, how splendid of him to give all that; it will be quite a fortune to the poor things."
"Yes, it will pay their rent until Travers gets about again; he is not going to die this journey. Was it not liberal of the old fellow? but if you had only seen the way he gave it to me, as though he were ashamed of the whole thing.
"'That is for the man you told me about last night,' he said, in quite a grumpy voice; and he had hardly seemed as though he had listened yesterday; and he would not let me thank him, he turned testy at once; by-the-bye, Livy, he wants you to go and see him; you have evidently won his heart, my dear. 'If Mrs. Luttrell has half an hour's leisure I shall be pleased to see her,' those were his very words."
"I hope you told him that it would be rather difficult to find leisure with all my numerous engagements," returned Olivia, saucily, "but that I would do my best for him. How many callers have we had since we were married, Marcus? let me see, the Vicar and Mrs. Tolman, oh, and one day Mrs. Tolman brought a friend. I remember how excited I was that afternoon, and that horrid little Sarah Jane had her sleeves rolled up to her elbows when she opened the door, and I dared not offer them tea because I knew she would never have had boiling water. Oh, yes," continued Olivia, merrily, "I will look over my visiting list, and see how I am to squeeze in a call at Galvaston House. What hour do you think would suit him best, Marcus?"
Then Dr. Luttrell, who had been much amused by his wife's drollery, gravely considered the point.
"About three o'clock, I should say; I think he wants to show you his flowers; he is going to have his couch wheeled into the conservatory, or his winter garden, as he calls it. Why should you not go across this afternoon? Now I must be off to the Models;" and as Olivia took up her work again there was a soft flush on her cheek, and a happy look in her eyes as she listened to his light springing tread.
"Dear Marcus," she said to herself; "how pleased he is about this, it has done him good already. Oh, how I hope Mr. Gaythorne will take a fancy to him; he is rich and liberal, I am sure of that; he will pay Marcus well, and perhaps before long someone else will send for him. What, Dot, my sweet, must I love Jacko too?" as Dot laid her treasure on her mother's lap.
When Olivia rang at the bell of Galvaston House that afternoon the same rosy-cheeked maid admitted her.