We'll run down to Hastings, or the
immediate neighbourhood of Hastings, for a week or two."
"O Philip, how kind and considerate you are! I am sure, as I was
observing to Miss Paget only today, you--"
"Ah, by the bye, there's Miss Paget. Is it absolutely necessary that Miss
Paget should go to Hastings with us?"
"Well, dear, you see she has so kindly desired to remain with me for the
quarter, so as to give me time to turn round, you know, with regard to
caps and summer things, and so on--for, really, she has such taste, and
does strike out such excellent ideas about turning, and dipping, and
dyeing, that I don't know what will become of me when she leaves us; and
it would look so pointed to--"
"Yes; she had better go with us. But why all this fuss about Charlotte?
Who put it into your head that she wants change of air?"
Mr. Sheldon evidently considered it an established fact that any idea in
his wife's head must needs have been put there by someone or other.
"Well, you see, Diana and I were talking of Lotta this afternoon, and
Diana quite alarmed me."
"How so?" asked Mr. Sheldon, with a quick frown.
"Why, she said it was evident, by the fact of poor dear Tom's dying of a
fever, that his constitution must have been originally weak. And she said
that perhaps Charlotte had inherited Tom's weak constitution--and
frightened me dreadfully."
"There is no occasion for you to be frightened; Charlotte will get on
very well, I dare say, with care.
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