The work
was slow, and the dry as dust details thereof need not be recorded here.
It had but just begun when Horatio Paget suddenly returned from his
Continental expedition, and established himself once more in the Omega
Street lodgings.
CHAPTER II.
CAPTAIN PAGET AWAKENS TO A SENSE OF HIS DUTY.
Captain Paget's return was made known to the Sheldon circle by a letter
from the returning wanderer to his daughter. The Captain was laid up with
rheumatic gout, and wrote quite piteously to implore a visit from Diana.
Miss Paget, always constant to the idea of a duty to be performed on her
side, even to this _pere prodigue_, obeyed the summons promptly, with the
full approval of Georgy, always good-natured after her own fussy manner.
"And if you'd like to take your papa a bottle of Mr. Sheldon's old port,
Diana, remember it's at your disposal. I'm sure I've heard people say
that old port is good for the gout--or perhaps, by the bye, what I heard
was that it _wasn't_ good. I know old port and gout seem to run together
in my head somehow. But if there's anything in the house your papa would
like, Diana--wine, or gunpowder tea, or the eider-down coverlet off the
spare bed, or the parlour croquet, to amuse him of an evening, or a new
novel--surely one couldn't forfeit one's subscription by lending a book
to a non-subscribing invalid?"
While Georgy was suggesting the loan of almost every portable object in
the house as a specific for Captain Paget's gout, Charlotte sent for a
cab and made things smooth for her friend's departure.
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