Wix. Before she went to bed that night she
knew further that Sir Claude, since, as HE called it, they had been on
the rush, had received more telegrams than one. But they separated again
without speaking of Mrs. Beale.
Oh what a crossing for the straighteners and the old brown dress--which
latter appurtenance the child saw thriftily revived for the possible
disasters of travel! The wind got up in the night and from her little
room at the inn Maisie could hear the noise of the sea. The next day it
was raining and everything different: this was the case even with Susan
Ash, who positively crowed over the bad weather, partly, it seemed, for
relish of the time their visitor would have in the boat, and partly to
point the moral of the folly of coming to such holes. In the wet, with
Sir Claude, Maisie went to the Folkestone packet, on the arrival of
which, with many signs of the fray, he made her wait under an umbrella
by the quay; whence almost ere the vessel touched, he was to be
descried, in quest of their friend, wriggling--that had been his
word--through the invalids massed upon the deck. It was long till
he reappeared--it was not indeed till every one had landed; when he
presented the object of his benevolence in a light that Maisie scarce
knew whether to suppose the depth of prostration or the flush of
triumph. The lady on his arm, still bent beneath her late ordeal, was
muffled in such draperies as had never before offered so much support
to so much woe.
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