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"And it is well to know about people a little; when one comes among strangers as you do, Mrs. Loring; one can't be too careful an American, particularly." Miss Smeardon's voice trailed off upon a note of insinuation; but Robinette took no notice of the remark. She did not seem to have anything to say, so Miss Smeardon took up another subject. "What a pity that Mr.
There was a freezing silence, broken only by the stertorous breathing of Rupert on Miss Smeardon's lap. "Repeat, please, what you have just said, Carnaby," said his grandmother with dangerous calmness, "and speak distinctly." "I said that the cottage at Wittisham won't be sold because the plum tree's gone," repeated Carnaby doggedly. "It's been cut down." "How do you know?" "I've seen it."
She found herself morbidly observant of minute details; the pattern of the tablecloth; the crest upon the spoons; the curious red knobs upon Miss Smeardon's fingers, and the odd mincing way she held her fork; the almost athletic efforts of the butler when he raised an enormous silver dish-cover, and the curiously frugal and unappetizing nature of the viand it disclosed.
Carnaby refused point blank to drive with them; he would bicycle to the party or else not go at all, so it was alone with Miss Smeardon that Robinette started in the heavy old landau behind the palsied horse. Miss Smeardon gave one glance at Mrs. Loring's dress, and Robinette gave one glance at Miss Smeardon's, each making her own comments.
When Lavendar announced that he had to leave Stoke Revel, two pairs of eyes, Miss Smeardon's and Carnaby's, instantly looked at Robinette to see how she received the news, but she only smiled at the moment. She was just beginning her breakfast, and like the famous Charlotte, "went on cutting bread and butter," without any sign of emotion. "Hurrah!" thought the boy.
"Yes; I dare say there is, but I'm afraid there are social and mental dangers involved in not being afraid of it, too!" Her mischievous eyes swept the room, with Mrs. de Tracy's solemn figure and Miss Smeardon's for its bright ornaments. "The moment a person or a nation allows itself to be too dull, it ceases to be quite alive, doesn't it? But as to us Americans, Mr.
He said them now, and the results seemed likely to be fatal to a dropsical animal so soon after a full meal. "You'll kill him!" whispered Robinette as they left the dining room. "I mean to!" was the calm reply. "I'd like to wring old Smeardon's neck too!" but the broad good humour of the rosy face, the twinkling eyes, belied these truculent words.
The wizened face of the lap-dog, too, peering over the table's edge, out of Miss Smeardon's lap, might have acquired its distrustful expression, Robinette thought, from habitual doubts as to whether enough to eat would ever be his good fortune.
It was Carnaby of course who saluted Robinette thus, as she came towards the house on her return from Wittisham. "I'm not late, am I?" she said, consulting her watch. "I thought you'd be making a tremendous toilette; one of your killing ones to-night," Carnaby said. "Do! I love to see you all dressed up till old Smeardon's eyes look as if they would drop out when you come into the room."
The situation was saved by the behaviour of the lap-dog, which suddenly burst into a passion of barking and convulsive struggling in Miss Smeardon's arms. His enemy had come, and Carnaby had fifty ways of exasperating his grandmother's favourite, secrets between him and the bewildered dog.
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