“Doctor Bambury thinks she can move in a fortnight. The boy has had a little——”
“A little fiddlestick! I tell you it is she who likes to stay, and makes that fool, Bambury, advise her not going away. I tell you to send her to Newcome. The air is good for her.”
“By that confounded smoky town, my dear Lady Kew?”
“And invite your mother and little brothers and sisters to stay Christmas there. The way in which you neglect them is shameful, it is, Barnes.”
“Upon my word, ma’am, I propose to manage my own affairs without your ladyship’s assistance,” cries Barnes, starting up, “and did not come at this time of night to hear this kind of——”
“Of good advice. I sent for you to give it you. When I wrote to you to bring me the money I wanted it was but a pretext; Barkins might have fetched it from the City in the morning. I want you to send Clara and the children to Newcome. They ought to go, sir. That is why I sent for you; to tell you that. Have you been quarrelling as much as usual?”
“Pretty much as usual,” says Barnes, drumming on his hat.
“Don’t beat that devil’s tattoo; you agacez my poor old nerves. When Clara was given to you she was as well broke a girl as any in London.”
Sir Barnes responded by a groan.
“She was as gentle and amenable to reason, as good-natured a girl as could be; a little vacant and silly, but you men like dolls for your wives; and now in three years you have utterly spoiled her. She is restive, she is artful, she flies into rages, she fights you and beats you. He! he! and that comes of your beating her!”