Craven, "do I
clearly understand that I am to recoup myself out of Colonel Morris'
first payment?"
"I said so as plain as I could speak," agreed Miss Blake; and her speech
was very plain indeed.
Mr. Craven lifted his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders, while he drew
his cheque-book towards him.
"How is Helena?" he asked, as he wrote the final legendary flourish
after Craven and Son.
"Helena is but middling, poor dear," answered Miss Blake--on that
occasion she called her niece Hallana. "She frets, the creature, as is
natural; but she will get better when we leave England. England is a
hard country for anyone who is all nairves like Halana."
"Why do you never bring her to see me?" asked Mr. Craven, folding up
the cheque.
"Bring her to be stared at by a parcel of clerks!" exclaimed Miss Blake,
in a tone which really caused my hair to bristle. "Well-mannered, decent
young fellows in their own rank, no doubt, but not fit to look at my
sister's child. Now, now, Mr. Craven, ought Kathleen Blake's--or,
rather, Kathleen Elmsdale's daughter to serve as a fifth of November guy
for London lads? You know she is handsome enough to be a duchess, like
her mother."
"Yes, yes, I know," agreed Mr. Craven, and handed over the cheque.
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