“That is just where I want her to be again!” answers Mrs. Prince, listening with more good nature and better-feigned attention than her daughter would have done, but reverting to her own preoccupation--“the poor child”--turning back appealingly to her two grown-up auditors--“has got it into her head that he will be neglected. She and Nurse Blandy have not quite hit it off of late; that no one can look after him properly but herself; though, to tell the truth”--lowering her voice, and in a key of vexed shrewdness--“between ourselves, I think the poor man was on the high-road to be killed with kindness!” Both matron and maid listen with sympathetic attention; but to neither of them does anything occur in the way of a response that would be meet for the ear of Miss Prince’s mother. “I have my victoria here!” continues that lady, casting an imploring look towards Lavinia; “and I thought, if you would return in it with me, you might pacify her; come and go and take messages between them; convince her that he is having his medicine and his food at the proper hours; and so forth. She is not on speaking terms with Nurse Blandy since nurse complained to Dr. Roots of Féo’s taking the case entirely out of her hands, and _I_ always get upon her nerves if I come near her!” Miss Carew’s eyes are still fixed upon the Japanese rug, as if appraising its 4_s._ 11½_d._ merits. To a stranger it would seem as if she did not jump at the proposal. “It would be a real charity!” urges the maker of the suggestion, humbly and insistently. Mrs. Prince in adversity is a more prepossessing figure than Mrs. Prince full of bounce and metaphorical oats; and, perhaps, it is the perception of this fact that squeezes that reluctant sentence out of Lavinia. “I should like to help you,” she answers slowly; “but----” “But what?” cries Mrs. Prince. “If you answer that your gentlemen may want you in the course of the afternoon, you know that it is only a case of sending an order to the stables!” “Your gentlemen are going to desert you to-day, aren’t they?” puts in Mrs. Darcy, interposing for the first time; and with a very slight accent, so slight as to be perceptible only to Miss Carew, upon Mrs. Prince’s objectionable noun. “They are obliged to go to London on business--lawyer’s business!” replies Lavinia, unwillingly making the admission of her unusual freedom. “For the night?” cries Mrs. Prince, jumping at the acknowledgment, as its author had known that she would do. “Then why not come and stay with us?” For a moment no one answers; only it seems to Lavinia that Mrs. Darcy’s eyes echo “Why!”