Page:Tales of John Oliver Hobbes.djvu/26

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10
Some Emotions and a Moral.

bye, dear," she said; "don't forget the 24th, and bring your music. People are singing a lot of Schubert just now—all in German, you know. German is so quaint. And you haven't given me Godfrey's address," she added.

"Twelve, Achilles Villas, Shepherd's Bush," said the Captain.

"Shepherd's Bush!" said Lady Hemingway; "you must mean Bedford Park. There was some quite well-known literary people there—the sort who sometimes ask you to dinner."

"Godfrey is at Shepherd's Bush," repeated the Captain, gloomily.

"How dreadful! Pray don't tell any one outside the family," and with more adieux and more murmurings about the 24th, she and her daughter went out.

Harriet Golightly watched them drive away in their brougham.

"She might offer to take me for a turn in the Park occasionally," she said.

"Sarah's a selfish cat," said the Captain, "and always was. But she'd give all she's worth for your head of hair."

His wife did not find this speech so consoling as he had hoped.

"They make wigs wonderfully well now," she said, "and they keep up ever so much better than one's own hair."

"Is Sarah what you'd call well-preserved?" said the Captain, after a pause. "It's quite two years since I've seen her, and I fancy she's gone off."

"She looks every day of her age," said Harriet, "and that must be fifty—for she's older than Constance."