"Why do you want the carriage, darling?"
"To call on a lady somewhere near Richmond, or Combe, I think it is."
"Won't it do to-morrow?"
"Not so well as to-day."
"Then I suppose you must have it, darling."
"Not if you want it, Mumsey!" The speaker got the head of the person she addressed in Chancery, to kiss it, using the chair-back of the latter as a fulcrum.
Lady Upwell, the victim of this manoeuvre, said, "Take care, Mad dear; you'll spoil my ruche and put your eyes out." So her daughter released her, and sat at her feet. She had on her tussore in saxe-blue, trimmed with guipure lace, and was as pretty as ever, and as sad.
"Who is it you want to go and see, darling?" said her ladyship.
"That Mrs. Aiken," said Madeline.
"Oh," said her mother, "but isn't she rather?" But Madeline shook her head, with her eyes very wide open, and kept on shaking it all the while as she replied, "Oh no, she's not rather at all. It was all her husband." Whereupon her mother said, "Oh—it was her husband, was it?" and put back a loose lock of hair on her daughter's forehead that was getting in her eyes.