"Oh—the Torpeys," said the Countess freezingly. Because it was humiliating to have to put away those double eyeglasses. "Perhaps if there is anything else of interest you will tell me. Do not trouble to read the whole."
"But did you promise to drive over to Pensham? Because, if you did, we may just as well go together. With all those men at the Towers, I shall have to bespeak Tom Kettering and the mare."
"I think something was said about my going over. But I certainly made no promise." Her ladyship reflected a moment, and then said:—"I think we had better be free lances. I am most uncertain. It's a long drive. If I do go, I shall lunch at the Parysforts, which is more than half-way, and go on in the afternoon to your aunt at Poynders. Then I need not come back till the day after. I could call at Pensham by the way."
"I won't go to old Goody Parysforts—so that settles the matter! When shall I tell Adrian's mamma you are coming?"
"Are you going there at once?"
"Yes—to-morrow. I must see Adrian to talk to him about my old ladies, before I talk to either of them." Thereupon the Countess became prodigiously interested in the story of the twins, a subject about which she had been languid hitherto, and her daughter was not sorry, because she did not want to be asked again what Irene had said, which might have involved her in reading that young lady's text aloud, with extemporised emendations, possibly complex. She put that letter away, to re-read another time, and took out another one. "I've had this," she said, "from old Mrs. Prichard. But there's nothing in it!"
"Nothing in it?"
"Nothing about what Widow Thrale told us in hers. Nothing about Mrs. Thrale thinking she had gone dotty."
The Countess, with a passing rebuke of her daughter's phraseology, asked to be reminded of the story. Gwen, embarking on a résumé, was interrupted by a tunnel, and then had hardly begun again when the train rushed into a second section of it, which had slipped or been blown further along the line. However, Peace ensued, in a land where, to all appearance, notice-boards were dictating slow speeds from interested motives, as there was no reason in life against quick ones. Gwen took advantage of it to read Mrs. Prichard's letter aloud, with comments. This was the letter:—
"'My dear Lady,
"'I am looking forward to your return, and longing for it, for I have much to tell you. I cannot tell of it all now, but I can tell you what is such a happiness to tell, of the sweet kindness of this dear young woman who takes such care of me. A many have been very very kind to me, and what return have I to make, since my dear husband died?'...