To the drawing-room he went. A number of guests were assembled in the larger drawing-room variously occupied, and a little apart from the others sat Lady Elizabeth engaged in conversation with Mrs. Rosneath. Lord Lochiel was not to be seen.
Ivie strode angrily into the room. “Where is Lord Lochiel?” he said, going up to Lady Elizabeth. “Lady Elizabeth, I’ve many times been your guest and your husband’s—”
Lady Elizabeth looked up at him, ignored him, and continued her conversation with Mrs. Rosneath. “You were saying, Mrs. Rosneath—” Then, as Ivie stood there glaring at her, she said in Arctic tones, “I’ve no doubt you’ll find Lord Lochiel in the library, Captain McCormack.”
In the corridor outside the drawing-room Captain McCormack came upon Lord Lochiel and Dr. Herron.
Dr. Herron looked him full in the face. “As I was saying to you just now, Lord Lochiel,” he said slowly and distinctly, “there are some curs on whom even a good thrashing is a waste of labour, and consequently other means have to be adopted to restrain their vicious propensities.”
Ivie turned upon him.
“Have I to thank you, sir, for the insult put upon me today?”
“Most assuredly,” replied Dr. Herron; “but thank Lord Lochiel, not me, if you please, that you have been let off so lightly.”
Lord Lochiel interposed, calling to a servant who stood near.
“Show Captain McCormack the way out,” he said. “Captain McCormack, I have the honour to wish you good day.”
“I shall call you to account for your words, sir,” said Ivie in farewell thunder to Dr. Herron.
“By all means,” replied the doctor, “only you must make haste about it, for I leave for Wales the day after tomorrow.”
But somehow Captain Ivie thought better of it, and never did call Dr. Herron to account for his words.
And when “the day after tomorrow” came it found a motley gathering assembled on the up-platform of the little country station. In one corner stood Aunt Rosamond, a little worn and worried-looking still, perhaps, for the twenty-four hours of keen anxiety she had passed through, with Lord Lochiel at her elbow, for their kindhearted host had insisted on coming down himself to see the last of his guests, even to the neglect of a local agricultural dinner, for which he had been preparing speeches and cattle-breeding statistics for the last fortnight. A few yards from these two stood Miss Judith, in close converse with the old Scotch pastor, to whom the whole party felt somehow they owed a debt of gratitude impossible to discharge, and who had a quiet persistent way of putting on one side all attempts at thanks and acknowledgments one would hardly have expected from his gentle blue-eyed physique.
“If Lettice’s father were here, Dr. Forbes,” Miss Judith was saying in her high-pitched quavering voice (more quavering than ever now for the recent hysterics she had gone through)—“if he were here he would insist on—”
“If the father is at all like the daughter,” interrupted Dr. Forbes, “he is very likely to win his own way to everyone’s heart. Look how she’s got over my shy little lassie there. With their two heads so close together—plotting mischief, no doubt—one would think they had known each other for years instead of a short twenty-four hours.”
He pointed as he spoke to Lettice, with Dr. Herron in attendance of course, who, side by side and hand in hand with Maggie, was chirping and twittering like any little bird in earnest low-voiced talk.
Lettice was looking bright and radiant and as full of smiles and dimples as ever. Never before had her brown hair seemed more crisp and curled and tangled, never before had her eyes shone more changefully with the depth of fun and happiness within. As for quiet, sedate Miss Maggie, her head was bent low, and, looking under her poke sunbonnet, one could see the trace of a tear or two which Lettice’s earnest and reiterated expressions of gratitude had somehow brought to the surface. Lettice noted them with one of those quick sidelong glances of hers, but didn’t mind them in the least. She knew they didn’t come from a sore heart now, and she knew too she could soon drive them away with her light talk and fun.
“Look at those aunties of mine,” she began, stopping short in the midst of her farewell acknowledgments. “It is quite too shocking the way they are carrying on with those two middle-aged gentlemen. Why, Maggie, if you don’t take care you’ll be having Aunt Judie for a stepmother before you know where you are.” Miss Maggie looked up aghast. “You may well look shocked, dear; I assure you those two aunts are a very great anxiety to me, and will be till I can get some obliging creature who wears a coat and hat to take them off my hands. Such fun this morning, Maggie. I thought Lord Lochiel was going to make Aunt Rosamond an offer over the breakfast-table. I could see it in his face; and he did! But it was only a propitiatory offering after all, in the shape of a bull or young heifer which he thought papa might like to cross with a Welsh breed. You should have seen Aunt Rosamond’s face as she tried to express her gratitude. ‘I’m afraid my brother doesn’t at all understand the mysteries of cattle-breeding. Beef, Lord Lochiel, in any shape or form, I could undertake—it would be only a question of packing—but a bull! What could we do with the thing when we put up in London for the night?’ ”
Miss Maggie is rippling over with laughter now at Lettice’s perfect reproduction of Aunt Rosamond’s voice and manner. Here Dr. Herron joins in.
“Yes, I don’t quite see how it could have been managed. Matthews certainly might have charged herself with the bull’s comforts if you young ladies had not seen fit to overload her in the way you have with a kitten and puppy-dog.”
He glances to the farther end of the platform
