No
wonder the bishop hates the very name of the stone."
"How long will she stay here?" I asked dismally.
"Till Lord Carwitchet can come and escort her to Paris to visit some
American friends. Goodness knows when that will be! Do go up to town,
Uncle Paul!"
I refused indignantly. The very least I could do was to stand by my poor
young relatives in their troubles and help them through. I did so. I wore
that inferior cat's eye for six weeks!
It is a time I cannot think of even now without a shudder. The more I saw
of that terrible old woman the more I detested her, and we saw a very
great deal of her. Leta kept her word, and neither accepted nor gave
invitations all that time. We were cut off from all society but that of
old General Fairford, who would go anywhere and meet anyone to get a
rubber after dinner; the doctor, a sporting widower; and the Duberlys, a
giddy, rather rackety young, couple who had taken the Dower House for a
year. Lady Carwitchet seemed perfectly content. She reveled in the soft
living and good fare of the Manor House, the drives in Leta's big
barouche, and Domenico's dinners, as one to whom short commons were not
unknown. She had a hungry way of grabbing and grasping at everything she
could--the shillings she won at whist, the best fruit at dessert, the
postage stamps in the library inkstand--that was infinitely suggestive.
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