and on it we are out at elbows. It is just about enough for you to dress on. Oh, Fanny, Fanny!”
Hysterically the old lady waved her hands. “Oh, Fanny, I have so prayed that you would make a brilliant match. I have scrimped and saved that you might, and you go and take a blond beast of a pauper. It is too cruel!”
Fanny winced. It was cruel. But the cruelty was not hers. It was Fate’s. She too had hoped for the very marriage her mother had so ardently desired. But Loftus had not cared. Occupied elsewhere he had sailed away. As well then Annandale as another.
“You see, you know,” she said in a wretched effort at smoothing things over, “he is quite a hero.”
But this was too much. Mrs. Price shook her head like a battle horse and fairly neighed.
“Because he saved your clothes? If it had been your life and you had said ‘Thank you’ it would have been ample. But your clothes! Not mine; the beast had not sense enough for that, but yours! I do hope you will give that as an excuse to Sylvia!”