I would much rather scream at Aunt Maria for a whole afternoon than have to spend it with Lady Carriston.  I am sure she and Godmamma would be the greatest friends if they could meet.  When I got up to my room I was astonished to find it was so late.  I had not even scrambled into my clothes when the clock struck five.  I had forgotten all about Charlie and his scrap of paper, but when I got into the blue drawing-room, there he was, with his wrist bandaged up, and no signs of tea about.  What do you think the horrid boy had done, Mamma?  Actually had the big gold clock in my room put on!  There were ten chances to one, he said, against my looking at my watch, and he knew I would not come down unless I thought it was five.  I was so cross that I wanted to go upstairs again, but he would not let me; he stood in front of the door, and there was no good making a fuss, so I sat down by the fire.

He said he had seen last night how struck his Grandfather had been with me, and he did want me to get round him, as he had got into an awful mess, and had not an idea how he was going to get out of it, unless I helped him.  I said I was sorry, but I really did not see how I could do anything, and that he had better tell his Mother, as she adored him.

[Sidenote:  Cora’s Necklace]

He simply jumped with horror at the idea of telling his Mother.  “Good Lord!” he said, “the old girl would murder me,” which I did not think very respectful of him.  Then he fidgeted, and humm’d and haw’d for such a time that tea had begun to come in before I could understand the least bit what the mess was; but it was something about a Cora de la Haye, who dances at the Empire, and a diamond necklace, and how he was madly in love with her, and intended to marry her, but he had lost such a lot of money at Goodwood, that no one knew about, as he was supposed not to have been there, that he could not pay for the necklace unless his grandfather gave him a lump sum to pay his debts at Oxford with, and that what he wanted was for me to get round the old Earl to give him this money, and then he could pay for Cora de la Haye’s necklace.

He showed me her photo, which he keeps in his pocket.  It is just like the ones in the shops in the Rue de Rivoli that Mademoiselle never would let me stop and look at in Paris.  I am sure Lady Carriston can’t have been having second sight into her children’s thoughts lately!

Just then Lady Garnons and some of the new people came in, and he was obliged to stop.  We had a kind of high tea, as the Conservative meeting was to be at eight, and it is three-quarters of an hour’s drive into Barchurch, and there was to be a big supper after.  Lady Carriston did make such a fuss over Charlie’s wrist.  She wanted to know was it badly sprained, and did it ache much, and was it swollen, and he had the impudence to let her almost cry over him, and pretended to wince when she touched it!  As we were driving in to the meeting he sat next me in the omnibus, and kept squeezing my arm all the time under the rug, which did annoy me so, that at last I gave his ankle a nasty kick, and then he left off for a little.  He has not the ways of a gentleman, and I think he had better marry his Cora, and settle down into a class more suited to him than ours; but I shan’t help him with his Grandfather.