When Sally reached home, very late, she was not displeased, though she was a little surprised, to find that Mrs. Lobjoit was keeping dinner back, and that her mother and Fenwick had not reappeared, having been away since they parted. Not displeased, because it gave her time to settle down—the expression she made use of, to think with; not with any admission, however, that she either felt or looked unusually exaltée—but surprised, because it was eight o'clock, and she felt that even Mrs. Lobjoit's good-nature might have limits.
But while she was settling down, in a happy, excited dream she half wondered that she did not wake from, back came the truants; and she heard from her room above Mrs. Lobjoit's report that Miss Sally was gone upstairs to get ready, with the faintest hint of reproach in the tone. Then her mother's "Don't stop to read letters, Gerry—that'll do after," and Fenwick's "All right!" not followed by immediate obedience. Then, after half a moment's delay, in which she felt some surprise at herself for not going out to meet them coming up the stairs, her mother's voice approaching, that asked where the kitten was.
"Oh, here you are, chick!—how long have you been in? Why, Sallykin!
what is it, child?... Oh, Gerry—Gerry—come up here and hear this!" For the merpussy, in spite of many stoical resolutions, had merged a beginning of verbal communication in a burst of happy tears on her mother's bosom.
And when Fenwick, coming upstairs three steps at a time, filled the whole house with "Hullo, Sarah! what's the latest intelligence?" this young lady had only just time to pull herself together into something like dignified self-possession, in order to reply ridiculously—how could she have been our usual Sally, else?—"We-ell! I don't see that it's anything so very remarkable, after all. I've been encouraging my medical adviser's attentions, if you want to know, Jeremiah."
Was it only a fancy of Sally's, as she ended off a hurried toilet, for Mrs. Lobjoit's sake, or did her mother say to Fenwick, "Well!—that is something delightful, at any rate"? As though it were in some sense a set-off against something not delightful elsewhere.
CHAPTER XLII
OF A RECURRENCE FROM AS YOU LIKE IT AND HOW FENWICK DIDN'T. WHY A SAILOR WOULD NOT LEARN TO SWIM. THE BARON AGAIN. OF A CUTTLE-FISH AND HIS SQUIRT. OF THE POWER OF A PRIORI REASONING. OF SALLY'S CONFESSION, AND HOW FENWICK WENT TO A FIRST-CLASS HOTEL