"Shall I tell him to go and see them at Kencroft?"
"Oh, do, do, dear Aunt Carey! Please tell him to go to papa, and not
want to see me till—-"
"Very well, my dear child; that will be the best way. Now I will
send you up some tea, and then you shall put Lina to bed; and you and
I will slip off quietly together, and go to St. Andrew's in peace,
quite in a different direction from the others, before they set out."
Meantime Cecil had been found by Babie tumbling about the music and
newspapers on the ottoman, and on her observation—-
"Too soon, sir! And pray what mischief still have your idle hands
found to do?"
"Don't!" he burst out; "I'm on the verge of distraction already!
I can't bear it!"
"Is there anything the matter? You're not in a scrape? You don't
want Jock?" she said.
"No, no—-only I've done it. Babie, I shall go mad, if I don't get an
answer soon."
Babie was much too sharp not to see what he meant. She knew in a
kind of intuitive, undeveloped way how things stood with Bobus, and
this gave a certain seriousness to her manner of saying—-
"Essie?"
"Of course, the darling! If your mother would only come and tell
me,-—but she was frightened, and won't say anything. If she won't,
I'm the most miserable fellow in the world.
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