"Very well, Mary; but don't give him too much, for fear he should drop the letters about. I'll be ready in ten minutes."
And in five minutes she had scrawled a very different sort of a letter. But he might want the money immediately, so she would not delay it for a day.
On the whole, the party at Chaldicotes was very pleasant, and the time passed away quickly enough. Mr. Robarts's chief friend there, independently of Mr. Sowerby, was Miss Dunstable, who seemed to take a great fancy to him, whereas she was not very accessible to the blandishments of Mr. Supplehouse, nor more specially courteous even to her host than good manners required of her. But then Mr. Supplehouse and Mr. Sowerby were both bachelors, while Mark Robarts was a married man.
With Mr. Sowerby Robarts had more than one communication respecting Lord Lufton and his affairs, which he would willingly have avoided had it been possible. Sowerby was one of those men who are always mixing up business with pleasure, and who have usually some scheme in their mind which requires forwarding. Men of this class have, as a rule, no daily work, no regular routine of labor; but it may be doubted whether they do not toil much more incessantly than those who have.
"Lufton is so dilatory," Mr. Sowerby said. "Why did he not arrange this at once, when he promised it? And then he is so afraid of that old woman at Framley Court. Well, my dear fellow, say what you will, she is an old woman, and she'll never be younger. But do write to Lufton, and tell him that this delay is inconvenient to me; he'll do any thing for you, I know."
Mark said that he would write, and, indeed, did do so; but he did not at first like the tone of the conversation into which he was dragged. It was very painful to him to hear Lady Lufton called an old woman, and hardly less so to discuss the propriety of Lord Lufton's parting with his property. This was irksome to him till habit made it
