"
"You can go round the hospital with me, if you like," the Doctor
said, "if you will promise not to make a dozen suggestions for the
improvement of things in general."
Isobel Hannay came down to breakfast in high spirits upon the morning of
the races. The dinner had gone off excellently. The dinner table,
with its softly shaded lamps, and the Doctor's arrangements of
the flowers, had been, she thought, perfection, and everything had
passed off without a hitch. Her duties as a hostess had been much
lighter than she had anticipated. Mrs. Hunter was a very pleasant,
motherly woman, and the girls, who had only come out from England
four months before, were fresh and unaffected, and the other people
had all been pleasant and chatty.
Altogether, she felt that her first dinner party had been a great
success.
She was looking forward now with pleasant anticipation to the day.
She had seen but little of the natives so far, and she was now to
see them at their best. Then she had never been present at a race,
and everything would be new and exciting.
"Well, uncle, what time did you get in?" she asked, as she stepped
out into the veranda to meet him on his return from early parade.
"It was too bad of you and Mr. Hunter running off instead of waiting
to chat things over."
"I have no doubt you ladies did plenty of that, my dear."
"Indeed, we didn't, uncle; you see they had had a very long drive,
and Mrs. Hunter insisted on the girls going to bed directly you all
went out, and as I could not sit up by myself, I had to go too.
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