I will call for you and your young man at seven o'clock.
'Your affectionate sister,
'WINIFRED DARTIE.
'Montague believes the dinner at the Crown and Sceptre to be quite
eatable.'
Montague was Dartie's second and better known name--his first being
Moses; for he was nothing if not a man of the world.
Her plan met with more opposition from Providence than so benevolent a
scheme deserved. In the first place young Flippard wrote:
'DEAR Mrs. DARTIE,
'Awfully sorry. Engaged two deep.
'Yours,
'AUGUSTUS FLIPPARD.'
It was late to send into the by-ways and hedges to remedy this
misfortune. With the promptitude and conduct of a mother, Winifred
fell back on her husband. She had, indeed, the decided but tolerant
temperament that goes with a good deal of profile, fair hair, and
greenish eyes. She was seldom or never at a loss; or if at a loss, was
always able to convert it into a gain.
Dartie, too, was in good feather. Erotic had failed to win the
Lancashire Cup. Indeed, that celebrated animal, owned as he was by a
pillar of the turf, who had secretly laid many thousands against him,
had not even started. The forty-eight hours that followed his scratching
were among the darkest in Dartie's life.
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