"I may be unable to answer you, but do not let that stop you. Write always; I shall want to hear everything about you."
And Rotha answered, it would be the greatest joy to her; and they parted.
She went in at a somewhat peculiar moment. Half an hour sooner, Antoinette had returned from a friend's house where she had been dining, and burst into the parlour with news.
"Mamma!" she exclaimed, before the door was shut behind her,—"Guess what is coming."
"What?" said her mother calmly. She was accustomed to Antoinette's superlatives.
"Mr. Southwode is coming back.—"
Now Mrs. Busby did prick up her ears. "How do you know?"
"There was a Mr. Lingard at dinner—a prosy old fellow, as tiresome as ever he could be; but he is English, and knows the Southwodes, and he told lots about them."
"What?"
"O I don't know!—a lot of stuff. About the business and the property, and how old Mr. Southwode left it all to this son; and he carries it on in some ridiculous way that I didn't understand; and the uncle tried to break the will, and there has been a world of trouble; but now Mr. Digby Southwode is coming back to New York."