She raised
Sir Patrick's hand gratefully to her lips.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You don't mean that _you_ would do that?"
"I am certainly the last person who ought to do it--seeing that you went
to the inn in flat rebellion against my orders, and that I only forgave
you, on your own promise of amendment, the other day. It is a miserably
weak proceeding on the part of 'the head of the family' to be turning
his back on his own principles, because his niece happens to be anxious
and unhappy. Still (if you could lend me your little carriage), I
_might_ take a surly drive toward Craig Fernie, all by myself, and I
_might_ stumble against Miss Silvester--in case you have any thing to
say."
"Any thing to say?" repeated Blanche. She put her arm round her uncle's
neck, and whispered in his ear one of the most interminable messages
that ever was sent from one human being to another. Sir Patrick
listened, with a growing interest in the inquiry on which he was
secretly bent. "The woman must have some noble qualities," he thought,
"who can inspire such devotion as this."
While Blanche was whispering to her uncle, a second private
conference--of the purely domestic sort--was taking place between Lady
Lundie and the butler, in the hall outside the library door.
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